ANDRADE, Lazaro Ramom dos Santos.
Abstract:
Population growth, linked to the advance of industrialization in cities, caused numerous
environmental problems, such as the production of wastewater. In urban and rural areas
of the micro-regions of the states, this problem presents an even more worrying scenario
due to the lack of government incentives regarding treatment technologies for these
waters. This research, developed in the scope of the Reference Laboratory in
Desalination of the Federal University of Campina Grande, aims to study and evaluate
the performance of a pilot wastewater treatment system for agricultural purposes,
composed of three tubular type reactors, with polystyrene bed. The evaluation of the
system was carried out as a function of the reactors arrangements, in series and/or
parallel, using different polystyrene particle sizes and flow rates. From the experimental
results, it was observed that the 2.0 mm polystyrene spheres were the ones that most
changed their weight and diameter, however, after drying, they returned to their initial
characteristics. Comparing the efficiency of the two studied configurations, it was
observed that the system with series reactors, and a 2.0 mm diameter polystyrene bed,
presented the highest removal rate of chemical oxygen demand, color, turbidity, E coli,
total phosphorus, and nitrification, when operated at 0.5L/min. In terms of system
maintenance, backwashing the filter media was a fundamental step in recovering the
production and quality of the permeate. The results of the physical, chemical and
microbiological analyzes of the water samples, after the process with the reactor system
in series at 0.5 L/min, were within the standards established for Classes 2 and 3 of
CONAMA, thus enabling its use in irrigation.
