Removing Biogenic Elements from Urban Sewage: Technology Review

Protecting the environment and water bodies from pollution and depletion is one of the key problems of today’s world. Aggravating pollution of water sources due to insufficient capacities and efficiency of the existing sewage treatment facilities, as well as the discharge of poorly-treated or untreated sewage, causes the violations of the sanitary, chemical, and hydrobiological regimen of water bodies. The increased content of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds in sewage propagates eutrophication leading to the destruction of water flora and fauna. The removal of biogenic elements from sewage in current conditions is one of the key problems in wastewater treatment. This article analyzes the existing techniques of nitrogen and phosphorus compound removal from wastewater as the most efficient and affordable method of sewage treatment. The authors analyzed research and review publications from international citation bases. Further, they compared the advantages and disadvantages of biogenic element removal techniques based on the analysis performed. The authors compared the following techniques: A/O (anaerobic/oxic), AA/O (anaerobic/anoxic/oxic), the UCT (University of Cape Town) process, the Modified UCT process, the Bardenpho process, and the JHB (Johannesburg) process.