Downflow Hanging Sponge (DHS) Reactor for Wastewater Treatment - A Short Review

Abstract

A combination of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) and downflow hanging sponge (DHS) reactor has emerged as an interesting alternative wastewater treatment process. The combined system not only exhibited good organic removal performance in pilot scale experiment, moreover, several studies in the last decades also showed the good efficiency and robustness of DHS reactor in full-scale operation for wastewater treatment. This paper provides a review on the basic concept, historical process development and application of the DHS reactor for wastewater treatment. Over twenty-year development of DHS technology suggests that DHS reactor had become a viable alternative not only solving the sanitation problems in developing countries but also great further potential development in the field of resources recovery technologies from wastewater.