New sustainable concept for sewage treatment technology: Solar energy biological wastewater treatment systems

Abstract

A novel process for biological nutrient removal and disinfection is developed that is operated at relatively high temperature by making full use of solar energy and internal energy reuse systems. This process, termed solar energy wastewater treatment systems or SEWTS, is designed to achieve substantial ammonia conversion at high reaction rates for on-site wastewater treatment. This study aims to design and construct a prototype for making full use of solar energy to improve the performance of the bio-film reactor by maintaining a relatively high temperature (25-38°C). The basic mechanisms and characters, operating conditions and results of SEWTS are discussed, and some calculation models for solar energy collector design are also shown in this paper. During the six months of the experiment, artificial wastewater and municipal wastewater are treated. The process is shown to be stable, feasible and environmentally friendly.