AEROBIC GRANULAR SLUDGE VS. CONVENTIONAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT TECHNOLOGY

Due to stringent regulations and increased awareness towards environmental protection, during the past decades were developed and implemented several wastewater treatment technologies which proved to be more or less effective or cost-efficient. Recent trend in wastewater treatment research focuses on developing new biological wastewater treatment technologies with higher removal efficiencies and lower investment and/or operational costs. The performance of a biological system for wastewater treatment depends significantly on the active biomass concentration, the overall biodegradation rates, the reactor configuration, and the feeding rates of the pollutants and oxygen. The paper presents the aerobic granular sludge comparatively towards the conventional biological technology in terms of performances, investment and operational costs. Aerobic granular sludge has several advantages over conventional technologies such as fast settling ability, high biomass retention and ability to withstand high organic loadings including potential toxic substrates, leading towards a compact reactor system thus allowing high conversion rates and efficient biomass separation to minimize the reactor volume.