Iranian Journal of

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Background and Objectives: Biosorption is a new and inexpensive technique in heavy metals removal and recovery from aqueous solutions. In order to evaluate the potential of this method for the removal of nickel ions, biosorption of nickel ions from aqueous solution was studied using Cystoseira indica biomass in a packed bed column. Materials and Methods: The uptake capacity of nickel ions was investigated using protonated biomass at different influent concentrations and flow rates. In addition, the experimental breakthrough curve obtained under definite experimental conditions was modeled using Thomas, Yoon & Nelson, Dose-Response, and Belter models. Results: It was found that increasing influent concentration from 58 to 100 mg/l led to the increase of driving force for mass transfer and uptake capacity raised from 55.84 to 95.69 mg/g. The investigation of flow rate effect showed when the process is intraparticle mass transfer controlled, a slower flow rate favors the sorption. In the case of external mass transfer control, a higher flow rate decreases the film resistance and leads to an increase in mass transfer. Modeling the experimental data revealed that the abovementioned models were suitable to predict the breakthrough curves, especially Dose-Response. Measurement of pH of the effluent solution indicated that ion exchange is one of the main mechanisms of nickel biosorption using this biosorbent. Conclusion: The results of this study are complementary of the batch equilibrium sorption experiments. Therefore, from process viewpoint, this biomass can be proposed in the sorption columns as a sorbent for nickel ions.

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Background and Objective: Being low cost of building and operation, anaerobic baffled reactor is considered superior to aerobic methods of wastewater treatment, especially for small communities. However, it needs to be studded for upgrade and overcome of its limitations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of FABR and RABR reactors for the municipal wastewater treatment at laboratory scale and in field conditions to determine their optimum conditions in reaching effluent discharge standards.

Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in Khoy wastewater treatment plant. FABR was operated for 267 days with hydraulic retention time of 18-48 h and RABR was operated for 90 days with media bad rotation of 10-50 rpm. The reactors were fed in line from the wastewater canal. Using composite sampling, 224 samples were taken from the inflow and outflow of the reactors and each sample was analyzed for parameters of COD, BOD, TSS, VSS, TKN, and TP.

Results: The reactor startup took about 107 days. FABR removal efficiency was 93-80, 21-10, and 30-21% for COD, TKN, and PO₄ respectively at HRT of 48-18 h. FABR reached effluent disposal standard of TSS, COD, and BOD in all conditions and optimum HRT of 36 h. RABR reached to these standards at HRT 24 h and 50 rpm. However, none of them could meet the nutrient effluent standards.

Conclusion: FABR is an appropriate system for municipal wastewater treatment but for reaching N and P effluent standard, it should be combined with aerobic post-treatment. Moreover, in order to reuse the reactor's nutrient-rich effluent for irrigation; it can be reused as subsurface irrigation.