Experimental Validation of the Static Granular Bed Reactor for Industrial Waste Anaerobic Treatment
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 10
Abstract
The static granular bed reactor (SGBR) is a unique high-rate anaerobic reactor designed to operate in a simple downflow manner, offering high chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies (greater than 90%) resulting from high biomass retention in the system. A study was performed to evaluate the SGBR versus a control system, the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor, and to evaluate performance idiosyncrasies of the SGBR and the control. The two reactors were operated at three different hydraulic retention times (HRTs): 8, 16, and 24 h. The reactors treated synthetic wastewater, intended to simulate food industry waste, composed of sucrose and nonfat dry milk. Overall, COD removal was higher for the SGBR than for the UASB reactor. In particular, at a HRT of 8 h, the SGBR achieved a COD removal of 90.7% and the UASB reactor reduced the COD concentration by 77.5%. The UASB reactor’s specific COD loading factor proved rate limiting with values ranging from 0.19 to versus 0.11 to for the SGBR. A tracer study idealized hydraulics within the two systems, and the results showed minimal dead volume and 4–6% short circuiting for both reactors.
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Acknowledgments
The writers acknowledge the generous support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in funding this project through the Iowa By-Products of Biotechnology Consortium (BBC).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 10 • October 2010
Pages: 1139 - 1146
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 21, 2009
Accepted: Apr 13, 2010
Published online: Apr 20, 2010
Published in print: Oct 2010
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