Performance of aerated submerged fixed film reactor to treat domestic wastewater containing high ammonia loading

The performance of an aerated submerged fixed film bioreactor was evaluated during 45 days. High ammonia loading in domestic wastewater from a huge industry was used as the influent of the experiment. A laboratory experiment was conducted using a bioreactor with 5.6 L capacity operated at different hydraulic retention times which were 6, 8 and 10 h. Return activated sludge from wastewater treatment plant of Jababeka was taken as seed sludge. The influent of the experiment has Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) loading rate from 1181-1987 g COD m^-3 day^-1 and ammonia loading from 134-223 g NH₃-Nm^-3 day. Results indicated better performance at 10 h retention time that the system was able to achieve 90-93 and 94-99% removal efficiencies of COD and ammonia. Data gained exhibited the R² value were 0.87 and 0.85, respectively. The effluent COD an ammonia concentration ranged between 36-60 and 0.4 5 mg/L which lower than the Indonesian national discharge standards which were 80 mg COD/L and 10 mg NH₃-N/L. The present study showed also two conditions of aerobic and anaerobic could be worked in a single bioreactor.