Removal of Organic Matters and Nutrients by Using Bio-balls and Corn Cobs as Bio-film Carrier in MBBR Technology

Water is our life’s most significant component. It is used to cook, bathe, drink, wash, and for various industrial purposes. Due to urbanization, over exploitation and industrialization of water bodies throughout the world lead to degradation of water quality. Therefore, high water quality is needed, resulting in the need to develop modern and cost-effective techniques to remove organic matter and nutrients from wastewater. Moving-bed bio-film reactor (MBBR) method is one of those methods that are used effectively in this situation. The purpose of this research was to explore the effectiveness of the MBBR method in removing chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate, phosphate from wastewater using bio-balls and corn cobs as bio-film media. Synthetic wastewater was prepared in laboratory by taking different concentration of COD, nitrate, and phosphate. By using bio-balls as a bio-film carrier, the maximum removal efficiency of COD, nitrate, and phosphate was obtained to be 84%, 95.48%, and 96.93%, respectively, whereas for corn cobs, the maximum removal efficiency of COD, nitrate, and phosphate was found to be 72.39%, 94.63%, and 93.7%, respectively. The result obtained from the experiment confirmed that this process can be effectively used to treat domestic and industrial wastewater containing different pollutants.