Modeling and Performance of Waste Tires as Media in Fixed Bed Sequence Batch Reactor

Abstract

Introduction: The modeling aims to simulate or optimize a process in physical, chemical or biological environments and the derived model will provide a considerable assistance to generate data and predict unknown condition, in case of sufficient suitability. Unsuitable disposal and elimination of waste tires have polluted the environment and human life areas, it also have caused removal of a huge amount of recyclable materials and energy. Besides, attached growth biological processes of wastewater treatment are faced with very high costs of the beds used in such methods. Thus, this study targeted at the following topics: reuse of waste tires, reduction of the costs associated with preparation of biological wastewater treatment system beds, and increased productivity of refineries.  Materials and Methods: The current experimental study was conducted in pilot scale, in which ability of Fixed Bed Sequence Batch Reactor (FBSBR) and Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) was evaluated by synthetic wastewater in diverse loadings. Ultimately, the derived data were analyzed using the statistical software packages SPSS and MS Excel. Results: The maximum removal efficiencies of dissolved chemical oxygen demand for FBSBR and SBR reactors were 98.3 % and 97.9 %, respectively. In addition, Stover-Kincannon model provided a very suitable fitness (R2   > 0.99) for loading the bioreactor FBSBR. Conclusion: According to the results, not only waste tires can be reused, but also these wastes can be employed as a proper biological bed in wastewater refineries to improve their efficiency