The Effect of Organic Loading on Propylene Glycol Removal Using Fixed Bed Activated Sludge Hybrid Reactor

M. Farzadkia, R. Rezaei Kalantary, G. Mousavi, S. Jorfi and M. Gholamia

Abstract
Propylene glycol is discharged to the surface and underground waters and vicinity soils via industrial wastewater effluents, posing many health and environmental risks. The main goal of this study was to remove propylene glycol from synthetic wastewater in a fixed bed activated sludge reactor. To observe the effects of organic loading on bioreactor performance, the organic loading was increased by two sequencing stages: first by hydraulic retention time (HRT) depletion and second via propylene glycol concentration increase. Propylene glycol removal efficiency in HRTs of 8, 6, 4 and 2 h was 95.86, 95.12, 93.96 and 79.08 % respectively. A constant HRT of 6 h was selected for the second stage; propylene glycol concentrations of 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 mg L–1 were used. The removal efficiency for these concentrations was 95.12, 95.95, 88.54, 75.95 and 35.69 % respectively. Thus, the integrated fixed bed activated sludge reactor is an efficient, viable and promising technology for treating wastewaters containing propylene glycol.

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Keywords
Propylene glycol, fixed bed, activated sludge, hybrid reactor, biodegradation