Enhancement of the performance of an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor treating low-strength wastewater through implementation of a variable stirring rate program

Abstract

This work focuses on enhancement of the performance of an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor with a six-vertical-blade-disk-turbine impeller, containing granulated biomass treating low-strength synthetic wastewater, through a study of the feasibility of implementing a variable stirring rate program. The reactor was operated at 30°C and a six-hour cycle was used to treat approximately 2.0 L of the synthetic substrate with a chemical oxygen demand (COD) of nearly 500 mg/L. Two different stirring rate program were implemented: a constant rate of 50 rpm and a variable rate consisting of 75 rpm for one hour, 50 rpm for four hours and 25 rpm for 0.5 hour. The last 0.5 hour of the cycle was used for the settling step. In both cases, a very short start-up period and unfiltered and filtered substrate removal efficiencies of 81% and 88%, respectively, were attained. However, use of the variable stirring rate enhanced efficiency of the reactor dynamics without impairing biomass morphology, thus resulting in a reduction in the total cycle time and a possible decrease in energy consumption. Additionally, a simplified model of the anaerobic metabolic activity, using apparent kinetic parameters, was proposed as a consecutive first-order kinetic model with substrate and total volatile acid residual concentrations in order to analyze how the variable stirring rate affects reactor performance.