A process for producing PHA comprises obtaining biomass produced in the course of biologically treating a first wastewater source containing RBCOD. The biomass is to be exploited with a second wastewater source having a different RBCOD content from the first wastewater source in order to accumulate and thereby produce PHA. Before subjecting the biomass to a PHA accumulation process, the biomass PHA accumulation potential is enhanced via an acclimation process with the second wastewater source. During acclimation, the biomass is subjected to repeated feast-famine periods. During each feast period, the biomass is exposed to a fraction of the second wastewater source. The RBCOD uptake and/or biomass respiration rate is directly or indirectly measured during each feast period. The famine period is maintained for a period of time that is at least two times greater than the length of time of the proceeding feast period. After at least two feast-famine acclimation periods or after one or more measured parameters reveal an increased RBCOD relative uptake or respiration rate of the biomass during a subsequent feast period, the biomass is subjected to a PHA accumulation process using the second wastewater source.

Water treatment systems are disclosed. The system includes an electrochemical cell having an inlet and an outlet, a cathode comprising a catalytic material for electrochemical generation of persulfate free radicals, and an anode, a source of a persulfate positioned upstream of the electrochemical cell, first contaminant concentration sensor positioned upstream of the electrochemical cell, and a controller operatively coupled to receive one or more input signals from at least the first contaminant concentration sensor. Methods of treating water using the electrochemical cell disclosed herein are disclosed. Methods of facilitating water treatment by providing the electrochemical cell disclosed herein are disclosed. Methods of retrofitting a water treatment system having an AOP by providing the electrochemical cell disclosed herein are disclosed.

The present invention is directed to an anode including bacteria, a polymer, and a conductive material, wherein the bacteria, the polymer and the conductive material are deposited on at least one surface of the anode. Further provided is a microbial electrochemical system comprising the herein disclosed anode, and methods of using the same, such as for treating wastewater, hydrogen production, or generating electricity.

A biofilm process is disclosed for treating wastewater containing readily biodegradable dissolved organic matter GP (measured as chemical oxygen demand or COD) and producing surplus biomass from the biofilm process that includes an enhanced polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) content. The process comprises directing a wastewater influent containing the readily biodegradable COD (RBCOD) into a biofilm unit process. The PHA content of surplus biomass is enhanced by controlling for a decreased biofilm process specific organic loading rate in combination with controlling phosphorus loading rates relative to the process RBCOD loading rates: (1) controlling the wastewater influent phosphorus loading rate to the biofilm unit process includes maintaining an average RBCOD/P ratio of the influent that is between 200 and 800 g/g; (2) decreasing the process specific organic loading rate includes producing a biofilm unit process effluent having readily separable mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (RS-MLVSS); and (3) separating a portion of the RS-MLVSS from the biofilm unit process effluent and recycling at least a portion of the separated RS-MLVSS back to the biofilm unit process. The combination of the RBCOD/P control and specific loading rate control maintains, on average, the surplus biomass with a PHA content that is greater than 30% gPHA/g VSS.

Integrated methanogenic anaerobic reactor and membrane bioreactor, and method for eliminating organic matter and nitrogen in urban or industrial wastewater, preferably with COD concentrations between 150 and 5000 mg/L and where the eliminations of total nitrogen that occur are between 15 and 50 mg/L, at temperatures above 15° C. The wastewater treatment takes place thanks to three stages of treatment: methanogenic anaerobic stage, anoxic stage with biofilms and suspended biomass and aerobic filtration stage with biofilms and suspended biomass.

A method for providing an optimized organic load to a downstream wastewater treatment process includes the steps of: providing a primary wastewater treatment plant including an organic harvester (OH) with an OH effluent output stream with temporal variation in organic content, a sludge filtrate outflow from the primary wastewater treatment plant, a valve controlled by a controller, and a sensor communicatively coupled to the controller, the sensor disposed downstream of a combined outflow line to measure an organic content of a combined outflow to the downstream wastewater treatment process; sensing the organic content of the combined outflow to the downstream wastewater treatment process; adjusting the valve controlled by the controller to maintain about a setpoint organic content concentration of the combined outflow to the downstream wastewater treatment process by supplementing the OH effluent output stream with organically rich matter from the sludge filtrate outflow.

An external micro-interface papermaking wastewater treatment system and a wastewater treatment method are proposed. The wastewater treatment system includes a grating water collection tank, a first coagulation sedimentation tank, an inclined screen and a second coagulation sedimentation tank which are connected in sequence, a heat exchanger, a preheater and a wet oxidation reactor, wherein the heat exchanger is provided with a first inlet, a first outlet, a second inlet and a second outlet. A feed inlet is disposed on a side wall of the wet oxidation reactor, an oxidation water outlet is disposed on a top of the wet oxidation reactor, the feed inlet is connected with a micro-interface generator for dispersing and breaking gas into gas bubbles, a liquid phase inlet and a gas phase inlet are disposed on the micro-interface generator, and the gas phase inlet is connected with an air compressor.

The present invention provides solid bacterial growth support for wastewater treatment comprising microparticles coupled to and partly inserted on at least one surface thereof and having a microparticle coverage of about 20% to 100% of total surface of the solid bacterial growth support, and providing a biomass development surface at least about 1.57 times larger than the contact surface of a solid bacterial growth support without microparticles. The present invention also provides methods of using the solid bacterial growth support for wastewater treatment.

An intelligent detection system of effluent total nitrogen (TN) based on fuzzy transfer learning algorithm belongs to the field of intelligent detection technology. To detect the TN concentration, the artificial neural network can be used to model wastewater treatment process due to the nonlinear approximation ability and learning ability. However, wastewater treatment process has the characteristic of time-varying dynamics and external disturbance, artificial neural network prediction method cannot acquire sufficient data to ensure the accuracy of TN prediction, and data loss and data deficiency will make the prediction model invalid. The invention proposed an intelligent detection system of effluent total nitrogen based on fuzzy transfer learning algorithm; the proposed system contains several functional modules, including detection instrument, data acquisition, data storage and TN prediction. For the TN prediction module, the fuzzy transfer learning algorithm build the fuzzy neural network based intelligent prediction model, which the parameters are adjusted by the transfer learning method.

There are provided processes for treating wastewater. The processes can comprise treating a mixture comprising the wastewater and an activated sludge, in a single reactor, with an electric current having a density of less than about 55 A/m.sup.2, by means of at least one anode and at least one cathode that define therebetween an electrical zone for treating the mixture; exposing the mixture to an intermittent ON/OFF electrical exposure mode to the electric current in which an OFF period of time is about 1 to about 10 times longer than an ON period of time; and maintaining an adequate oxidation-reduction potential in the single reactor. Such processes allow for substantial removal of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus from the wastewater in the single reactor of various forms and for obtaining another mixture comprising a treated wastewater and solids.