Packed‐ and fluidized‐bed biofilm reactor performance for anaerobic wastewater treatment

Abstract

Abstract Anaerobic degradation performance of a laboratory‐scale packed‐bed reactor (PBR) was compared with two fluidized‐bed biofilm reactors (FBRs) on molasses and whey feeds. The reactors were operated under constant pH (7) and temperature (35°C) conditions and were well mixed with high recirculation rates. The measured variables were chemical oxygen demand (COD), individual organic acids, gas composition, and gas rates. As carrier, sand of 0.3–0.5 mm diameter was used in the FBR, and porous clay spheres of 6 mm diameter were used in the PBR. Startup of the PBR was achieved with 1–5 day residence times. Start‐up of the FBR was only successful if liquid residence times were held low at 2–3 h. COD degradations of 86% with molasses (90% was biodegradable) were reached in both the FBR and PBR at 6 h residence time and loadings of 10 g COD/L day. At higher loadings the FBR gave the best performance; even at 40–45 g COD/L day, with 6 h residence times, 70% COD was degraded. The PBR could not be operated above 20 g COD/L day without clogging. A comparison of the reaction rates show that the PBR and FBR per formed similarly at low concentrations in the reactors up to 1 g COD/L, while above 3 g COD/L the rates were 17.4 g COD/L day for the PBR and 38.4 g COD/L day for the FBR. This difference is probably due to diffusion limitations and a less active biomass content of the PBR compared with the fluidized bed. The results of dynamic step change experiments, in which residence times and feed concentrations were changed hanged at constant loading, demonstrated the rapid response of the reactors. Thus, the response times for an increase in gas rate or an increase in organic acids due to an increase in feed concentration were less than 1 day and could be explained by substrate limitation. Other slower responses were observed in which the reactor culture adapted over periods of 5–10 days; these were apparently growth related. An increase in loading of over 100% always resulted in large increases inorganic acids, especially acetic and propionic, as well as large increases in the CO 2 gas content. In general, the CO 2 content of the gas was very low, due to the large amount of dissolved CO 2 that exited with the liquid phase at low residence times. The performance of the FBR with whey was comparable to its performance with molasses, and switching of molasses to whey feed resulted in immediate good performance without adaptation.