Activated Sludge Respiration Activity Inhibition Caused by Mobile Toilet Chemicals

Abstract

Ensuring high quality drinking water sources is important task nowadays. To reach this task, knowledge about the impact of different chemicals on aerobic wastewater treatment is mandatory. A mixture of different chemicals reaches wastewater treatment plant every day. With the growing discharge volume of mobile toilet chemicals, active substances in these products in the past years have been recorded. The respiratory activity of activated sludge was determined to show how mobile toilet chemicals and their active substances may affect the biological wastewater treatment process. The results show negative effect of formaldehyde and bronopol on respiratory activity of activated sludge. The wastewater treatment plants influent composition and size also play important roles. Results shows that activated sludge microorganisms at a wastewater treatment plant in industrial urban area may be adapted to the higher pollutants concentration. When mobile toilet tanks are directly discharged at smaller wastewater treatment plant, an activated sludge process can be affected. For treating mobile toilet wastewater, bacterial degraders can be used. During our respiratory activity experiments, potential degraders were searched. Ralstonia sp. prevails in all samples and it is therefore a potential mobile toilet chemicals degrader.