An evaluation of single- and separated-phase anaerobic industrial wastewater treatment in fluidized bed reactors

✍ Scribed by Michael A. Bull; Robert M. Sterritt; John N. Lester

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 922 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3592
• DOI: 10.1002/bit.260260907

✦ Synopsis

Four fluidized bed reactors were used to evaluate singleand separated-phase anaerobic treatments of a high strength wastewater. Two reactors were fed with a synthetic wastewater, containing glucose as the primary carbon source, with a COD of 1.2 x lo4 mglL while the remaining pair were fed with a wastewater with a COD of 6000 mglL. At each influent strength, one fluidized bed reactor was operated as a single-phase system while the other was operated as a methanogenic reactor which was preceded by an acidification reactor in a separatedphase system. The reactors were operated under steadystate and variable process conditions. The separatedphase system consistently gave a better quality effluent with lower effluent suspended solids and total COD, and the methane yield was also improved. Under variable process conditions, the separated-phase system was inherently more stable and recovered more rapidly following a shock loading. Propionate and acetate degradation studies indicated that the biomass in the methanogenic fluidized beds of the two-phase systems was more adapted to volatile acid degradation than the biomass in the single-phase fluidized beds.