Aerobic Granulation for the Treatment of Domestic Wastewater

Increasing pressure on India’s limited water resources due to population growth demands innovative and cost-effective methods of water management. One avenue of significant research is the treatment and recycling of municipal wastewater, where only about 31% of the domestic wastewater generated is treated using conventional methods. Aerobic granulation (AG) is a novel biotechnological wastewater treatment process that is increasingly drawing the interest of researchers worldwide. Aerobic granules are aggregates of microorganisms that form through microbe-to-microbe self-immobilization without reliance on biocarriers. The granules are packed with different microbial species and typically contain millions of organisms per gram of biomass. These microbes have the necessary physiological capabilities to degrade the pollutants in municipal and industrial wastewaters. The advantages of AG are its small space requirements, higher tolerance of toxicity and shock loads, and improvement in settling properties of biomass. The proposed project aims to develop and culture aerobic granules for the effective treatment of synthetic domestic wastewater in batch and continuous processes.

Faculty Supervisor:

Andrew Tay

Student:

Shubham Tiwari

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

University:

University of Calgary

Program:

Globalink Research Award