UASBR: An effective wastewater treatment option to curb greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion is used for treating high strength organic wastewater. Since late seventies, anaerobic digestion has experienced an outstanding growth in research and full scale application, particularly for the treatment of food and beverage industry effluent and to a lesser extent for municipal wastewater (Hulshoff-Pol et al. 1998; Yu et al. 2004; Fountoulakis et al. 2004; Filik-Iscen et al. 2007). Anaerobic digestion is a complex, natural, and multi-stage process in which organic compounds are degraded through a variety of intermediates into methane and carbon dioxide, by the activity of a consortium of micro organisms. Interdependence of the bacteria is a key factor in the anaerobic digestion process (Parawira et al. 2005) and the deciding factor for quality of treated effluent as well as gas generation.