title: Operation of an aquatic worm reactor suitable for sludge reduction at large scale.
abstract: Treatment of domestic waste water results in the production of waste sludge, which requires costly further processing. A biological method to reduce the amount of waste sludge and its volume is treatment in an aquatic worm reactor. The potential of such a worm reactor with the oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus has been shown at small scale. For scaling up purposes, a new configuration of the reactor was designed, in which the worms were positioned horizontally in the carrier material. This was tested in a continuous experiment of 8 weeks where it treated all the waste sludge from a lab-scale activated sludge process. The results showed a higher worm growth rate compared to previous experiments with the old configuration, whilst nutrient release was similar. The new configuration has a low footprint and allows for easy aeration and faeces collection, thereby making it suitable for full scale application.
authors.affiliation: Wetsus, Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, P.O. Box 1113, 8900 CC Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. tim.hendrickx@wur.nl
authors.forename: Tim L G
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Hendrickx
authors.forename: Hellen H J
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Elissen
authors.forename: Hardy
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Temmink
authors.forename: Cees J N
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Buisman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D009835:Oligochaeta / Q000378:metabolism*; D012722:Sewage
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage