Canteen Wastewater Treatment by the Activated Sludge added Bioballs

Abstract

Water pollution has become a serious problem. Water pollution occurs because wastewater is discharged into water bodies without being managed properly. One of the sources of water pollution is domestic wastewater. Industrial sectors produce domestic wastewater derived from the residue of canteen activities. This study aims to treat the canteen wastewater from the food industry located in West Java Province. Initially, the canteen wastewater treatment used a combination of grease trap and activated sludge, but BOD and TSS levels do not meet the quality standards. A prototype of a biological wastewater treatment system, consisting of an activated sludge system and an activated sludge system added bioballs were then made. Bioballs were added to the activated sludge prototype to increase the treatment to enable the achievement of the wastewater quality standards. By combining the activated sludge and bioballs, both suspended and attached microorganisms would grow in this biological wastewater treatment system. The parameters of BOD, COD, TSS were measured in both prototypes of reactors. The microorganisms used were taken from the wastewater treatment plant in this industry. Before conducting the main experiment, the seeding and acclimatization process was done for 15 days at the hydraulic retention time of 48 hours. During this period, MLVSS in the activated sludge increased from 400 mg/L to 1,080 mg/L, whereas MLVSS in the activated sludge and bioballs increased from 580 mg/L to 1,120 mg/L. The main experiments resulted in BOD, COD, TSS reductions of 93.44%, 93.44%, and 92.66% in the activated sludge. In the activated sludge added bioballs, the BOD, COD, TSS reductions were 89.36%, 89.36%, and 83.49%, respectively. It means that the addition of bioballs has not affected the performance of the reactor during this period.