Comparative bioparticle and hydrodynamic characteristics of conventional and tapered anaerobic fluidized-bed bioreactors

✍ Scribed by Ju-Sheng Huang; Jii-Lian Yan; Chun-Sheng Wu

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 174 KB
• Volume: 75
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0268-2575
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4660(200004)75:4<269::aid-jctb214>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

By maintaining the same operational conditions of one conventional ¯uidized-bed bioreactor (CFB) and two tapered ¯uidized-bed bioreactors (TFBs), the performance of the TFBs with taper angles of 5 °and 2.5 °were found to be superior to that of the CFB with a taper angle of 0 °. Experimental results together with statistical analyses showed that the bioparticle and hydrodynamic characteristics of the TFBs were signi®cantly different from those of the CFB. Also, bioparticle strati®cation occurred in the three bioreactors. The bio®lm thickness (d) and the speci®c biomass (b) of the three bioreactors varied in the following decreasing order 5 °b 2.5 °b 0 °under the same volumetric loading. Meanwhile, the speci®c energy dissipation rate (v) and the bioparticle washout rates (W = 0.214 AE 0.219; 0.537 AE 0.493 g BAC dm À3 day À1 ) of the two TFBs were considerably lower than that of the CFB (W = 1.086 AE 0.916 g BAC dm À3 day À1 ). A lower v value results in increases in d and b, and a lower dry density of the bio®lm (r d ). Accordingly, the performance enhancement with TFBs should be related to their lower v and W, thicker d and larger b values.