Abstract
Amongst the technologies available, the up flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) process has been one of the most widely applied methods for municipal waste water treatment especially in countries of warm climatic conditions like India. However, past about one decade has witnessed rapid decline in the UASB popularity and its implementation. There has been criticism from various sections on the performance of UASB reactors for not complying with the prescribed discharge standards. It is a general hypothesis that the UASB reactors are not meant for diluted waste water like municipal sewage when typically the BOD is less than 150 mg/l, COD 250 mg/l and sulphates are more than 150mg/l. An attempt has been made through this study to investigate the reasons on the basis of quality assessment and field observations on UASB reactors and it’s post-treatment of a newly commissioned (start-up) municipal (sewage) wastewater treatment plant commonly called ‘STP’ having capacity of 14 million litres per day (MLD). Study was aimed to know the gaps during the commissioning stage which could be related to poor removal efficiencies. This paper briefly discusses some issues related to operation and maintenance of the UASB plants with purpose for improvements.
Highlights
The upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Process) Technology, based on anaerobic principles for wastewater treatment, has been widely used across the world, in countries of warm climatic regions like India
In India alone, there are about 70 UASB installations for municipal application which are in operation with total flow handling capacity of approximately 3000 million litres per day (MLD)
A theoretical framework was developed for taking samples and their analysis for different parameters like pH, alkalinity, BOD, COD, TSS, sulphates, VFA and for sludge (TS, TSS, VSS, Ash Content)
Summary
The UASB (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Process) Technology, based on anaerobic principles for wastewater treatment, has been widely used across the world, in countries of warm climatic regions like India. It gained popularity because the technology offers moderate capital investments, low O&M cost, requires no energy for process, easy to implement, fairly good removal efficiencies and mediocre foot print. In India alone, there are about 70 UASB installations for municipal application which are in operation with total flow handling capacity of approximately 3000 MLD (population equivalent 30 million). Indian experience of UASB technology is very diverse and unique
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