Dairy Wastewater Treatment through a Novel Combined HABR-RBC System

• A novel combined HABR-RBC system was studied for dairy wastewater treatment. • The system showed more than 98% removal efficiency for COD, NH₄⁺-N, and TN. • Optimized anaerobic digestion facilitates cost-effective biogas production. • Methane production of 163 ± 7.03 L CH₄/kg CODₑ was achieved. Dairy wastewater has high concentration of organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus that require proper treatment to prevent environmental pollution. This research evaluate the performance of a novel combined laboratory-scale system consisting of a hybrid anaerobic baffled reactor (HABR), followed by a rotating biological contactor (RBC) in treating dairy wastewater. The research was conducted for 107 days. The combined HABR-RBC system was fed by dairy wastewater with an organic loading rate (OLR) ranging from 0.86 to 9.3 kgCOD/m 3 .day. The COD removal efficiency of the combined HABR-RBC system and methane production were 98.23% and 163 ± 7.03 L CH₄/kg CODₑ, respectively. Additionally, removal efficiencies of approximately 99.78% for total nitrogen (TN) and 99.07% for total ammonium (NH₄⁺-N) were achieved. These results show that the novel combined HABR-RBC system is highly effective for dairy wastewater treatment and opens up extensive possibilities for application in wastewater treatment processes.