Treatment of Cresol, Phenol and Formalin using Fixed‐film Reactors

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Abstract
The degradability of phenol, cresol and formalin, separately or in mixtures, was studied in a laboratory‐scale, submerged fixed‐film reactor and in a prototype trickling‐tower plant with recirculation of aerated effluent. The rates of degradation could be increased by 10–15 times by acclimating the reactors to increasing concentrations of disinfectants in the feed increasing daily from 10 to 1000 mg/1. After acclimation, detectable levels of disinfectants were only found in the liquor of the batch‐operated fixed‐film reactor after 24 h when the concentration of the daily dose exceeded 1100–1500 mg/1 and in the continuously‐fed trickling tower plant, when the feed concentration exceeded 1500 mg/1. It was possible in the reactor to treat cresol efficiently after acclimation to formalin and vice versa. Acclimation was shown to reduce diversity of bacterial species, the dominant isolates being Pseudomonos aeruginosa and other pseudomonads.