Anaerobic wastewater treatment by an expanded bed reactor

Abstract

The use of an Anaerobic Expanded Bed for the treatment of waste, high in organic load,is a subject under investigation in the last years. Due to the fact that microorganisms active for the decomposition are forming a film on the large surface area of the fil ter media, as well as trapped in the voids, the efficiency system is expected to be higher than other conventional processes. To investigate the performance of this system, a model consisting of three reactors was prepared. Out of these reactors, one was used as a control unit (not any media present) While in the other two dif-· ferent substrates were fed. The most important results obtained from this study are: i) The Chemical Oxygen Demand removal efficiency increased both for batch and semi-continuous reactors when the organiC load of the system increased. ii) Similarly, the removal efficiency of total volatile solids was proportional to the load of total volatile solids applied. iii) The performance of the Anaerobic Expanded Bed system was better than the performance of the simple anaerobic reactor. iv) Substrates containing yeast showed a better treatability than similar substrates without yeast in Anaerobic EXpanded Bed Reactors.