Novel Technique for Evaluation of Advanced Anaerobic Reactors

The present paper describes an approach for the overall evaluation of anaerobic reactor alternatives with an ultimate objective of developing a tool to assist in the selection of a particular anaerobic reactor type for a given set of conditions using systems approach. A formulation has been proposed to evaluate overall reactor performance in terms of reactor evaluation index (REI). This involves identification and quantification of the factors essential for reactor evaluation, and the development of the sensitivity function and assignment of weightages to each factor. Evaluation of REI requires the design of the reactor. Since no theoretical (rational) design criteria are available, a semirational design technique that takes advantage of both phenomenological and theoretical approaches is proposed. The semirational design approach considers a reference loading rate and the design loading under a given condition is obtained from the reference loading by applying waste and reactor correction factors.