Study on the effect of a static magnetic field in enhancing initial state of biogranulation

Abstract

Successful aggregation and surface hydrophobicity play a significant role towards effective initial state development of the biogranulation process. Considering previous studies, there is sparse research available for the study of the static magnetic field effect on aggregation and surface hydrophobicity of microbial granules. Therefore, this work aimed at exploring the feasibility of enhancing both aggregation and surface hydrophobicity using a static magnetic field. The influence of the static magnetic field on the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) was also monitored. The results showed that magnetically exposed activated sludge of 15 mT has better performance than other investigated intensity levels of static magnetic field. At 15 mT intensity, a maximum of 54% surface hydrophobicity was retained in 48 hours of starting the experiment and 90.4% aggregation was achieved in 10 hours. The removal efficiency of COD was also increased under similar static magnetic field intensity compared to the case without static magnetic field exposure. With this initial finding, it can be concluded that a static magnetic field of moderate field intensity stands a good chance of positively influencing the initial state of biogranulation.