Improving the efficiency of small-scale wastewater treatment by pneumatic agitation

Small-scale anaerobic and aerobic systems for wastewater treatment suffer relatively low efficiencies due primarily to a lack of mechanical agitation/mixing. Here, a pneumatic agitation system was designed by installing a U-tube between the anaerobic and anoxic units, pumping air to the closed headspace of the anaerobic unit and releasing the pressurized air through the U-tube to create turbulence of the fluid. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation and fluid tracer trial were used to describe the fluid status in a lab-scale system (13 L). The results demonstrated that a continuous 5-cycle pneumatic agitation achieved a complete mixing of the static fluid. The retention time factor () and short-circuiting flow coefficient (/HRT) were increased from 0.93 to 1.14 and 0.02 to 0.27, respectively, indicating that pneumatic agitation significantly reduced dead zone and short-circuiting flow. A prototype at a treatment capacity of 300 L/d was installed in the North-East suburb of Beijing (40.15° N, 116.95° E) to treat rural household wastewater consisting of 630–1200 mg/L chemical oxygen demand and 20–45 mg/L total nitrogen. The field test was monitored in a period of 75 days from September to November 2018. The average removal rate for COD and TN was 96% and 92%, respectively by 10 times/h pneumatic agitation as compared to 49% and 45% without pneumatic agitation. The pneumatic agitation provides a low cost, easy operation and maintenance and efficient means for small-scale domestic wastewater treatment.