Study on sewage characteristics in rural China and pollutants removal performance of biologically enhanced internal circulation treatment system

With rapid economic development and urbanization in China, rural wastewater treatment has become an important issue. This study investigated 63 rural sewage treatment stations in northern, central and southern Shaanxi, China for a 1-year period, 2021 to 2022. The main purpose of the research was to investigate the quality and discharge characteristics of rural sewage, along with current problems in rural wastewater treatment, in order to provide evidence for the optimal construction and operation of rural sewage treatment stations. We found that the biodegradability of rural wastewater is adequate, and BOD(5)/COD ratio in sewage was 0.4, which is suitable for biological treatment. It has obvious intermittent flow cut-off characteristics, and the range of cut-off duration of sewage was 6–16 h/d, which leads to poor pollutant removal efficiency (COD: 50.0 ± 29.2%, NH(4)(+)-N: 46.0 ± 26.1%, TN: 38.5 ± 24.9% and TP: 38.3 ± 23.8%) in sewage treatment stations. In response to the above characteristics, the rural sewage biologically enhanced internal circulation treatment (BEICT) system was constructed. After 97 days of operation, the system has a stable removal effect on TN and TP with an average removal rate of 77.42% and 89.69%, respectively, under the condition of influent interruption for 12 h per day. The activated sludge of system maintained good activity and stable sedimentation performance during the whole experiment, with MLVSS/MLSS and SVI of 0.72 and 128 mL/g, respectively. This study can provide the basis and technical support for the accurate design of rural sewage treatment facilities, and has important significance for guiding the treatment of rural domestic sewage in China.