title: Drag coefficient of porous and permeable microbial granules.
abstract: Settling velocity of microbial aggregates, such as anaerobic and aerobic granules, in biological wastewater treatment systems is highly related to their drag coefficient. In this work a new approach, taking the porosity and the permeability into account, was established to evaluate the drag coefficient of porous and permeable microbial granules. The effectiveness of this approach was demonstrated by the experimental results with both the anaerobic and the aerobic granules. The drag coefficient of the microbial granules was found to be less than that of smooth rigid spheres and Biofilm-covered particles. In addition, this study demonstrates that the drag coefficient of microbial granules depended heavily on their permeability and porosity. A fractal-cluster model was found to be able to predict the distribution of the primary particles in the microbial granules.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mu
authors.forename: Ting-Ting
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Han-Qing
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D010539:Permeability; D012722:Sewage; D014871:Water Microbiology
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage