Start-Up Procedures and Analysis of Microbial Segregation in HABR Using Synthetic Brewery Wastewater

Abstract

A laboratory-scale hybrid anaerobic baffled reactor (HABR) with five compartments using synthetic brewery wastewater as organic loading rates (OLRs) was investigated for the start-up performance and the effects of microbial community segregation on reactor start-up. Experimental results demonstrated that it was found that the COD removal efficiencies were 92~96% at 1.2 kgCOD/(m3•d) feeding over a period of 33 d, after which the reactors then successfully started. The highest percentage of CO2 in biogas was found in Compartment 1, thereafter decreased from Compartment 2 to Compartment 5 which corresponded to the increased of the percentage of CH4. It indicated that the proper anaerobic consortium in each separate compartment was developed along with specific environmental conditions, which offers the explanations that high treatment efficiency of HABR accompanied by high process stability and low operational requirements in start-up period.