The feasibility of using non-woven fabric as packing material for wastewater treatment

• Published in: Desalination and water treatment 2018-04, Vol.111, p.94-100
• Main Authors: El-Khateeb, M.A., Saad, M.A., Abdel-Shafy, H.I., Samhan, F.A., Shaaban, M.F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Domestic wastewater; Down-flow hanged non-woven reactor (DHNW); Plastic bottle recycling; Spun-bondnon-woven packing materials; UASB
• ISSN: 1944-3986
• DOI: 10.5004/dwt.2018.22103

The present study introduces a new technique using a combined up-flow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) followed by innovative down-flow hanging non-woven fabric (DHNW) for the treatment of domestic wastewater. The aim of this work is to develop an innovative non-woven packing material that can be used to improve the performance of both UASB and DHNW and other similar techniques for the treatment of wastewater. The packing material could be produced from waste plastic bottles, thus considerable part of solid waste can be reduced, recycled and applied in wastewater treatment plant to produce treated reusable effluent. The primary treatment was carried out using packed and classical UASB reactor (in parallel manner). The quality of the packed UASB effluent was better than that of the classical UASB reactor. Consequently, the effluent of the packed UASB reactor was fed directly to the DHNW reactor. The source of wastewater was the domestic wastewater from Zeneen’s wastewater treatment station. The hydraulic residence time (HRT) of the UASB reactors was 6 h. The performance of the combined packed UASB/DHNW showed reduction of COD, BOD and TSS from 349.6, 260.6 and 171.3 to 44, 24 and 27 mg/L, respectively. The fecal coliform (FC)count was reduced by 3 log units using the combined packed UASB/DHNW system. The results indicated that polyethylene terephthalate (PET) spun-bond non-woven fabric can offer a cost effective solution as well as durable and efficient packing material for wastewater treatment.