Treatment of medical wastewater by moving bed bioreactor system

Abstract

The hospital wastewater is considered as a complex mixture, populated with microbial and a variety of toxic substances. The performance of EEC USA moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) with polyethylene media as biofilm support carrier, packaged wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 250 m3/day was evaluated for treating the wastewater from Al-Batul hospital of Baquba city in Iraq in terms of the organic matter and suspended solid removal, along with nitrification and microbial growth for medical wastewater. The test results showed that the average removal efficiency of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and total suspended solid (TSS) were 79.5%, 74.5%, and 78%, respectively. The system offers good nitrification with the efficiency of 79%. The system shows a weak formation of biomass on carriers, only 1.93 g TSS/m2 of media, corresponding to 32% of the suspended biomass in the reactor.