High-rate Reactor Research Articles

Modeling of Anaerobic Digestion of Food Industry Wastes in Different Bioreactor Types

In the present study, modeling of the anaerobic digestion of food industry waste is examined. A very simple model was developed, assuming that the organic matter (in terms of COD) is composed of a hardly and an easily biodegradable COD fraction, which are consumed through different Monod kinetics towards methane production. Biochemical methane potential tests and continuous stirred tank experiments were carried out and used to estimate the values of the main kinetic parameters. In the sequel, the kinetic model is used to predict the behavior of a periodic anaerobic baffled reactor (PABR), also fed with the same waste. Only a single new parameter, the biomass retention factor is added in order to model the behavior of the high-rate reactor. Despite the structural and operational differences of the two anaerobic digesters, the simple model was able to satisfactorily predict methane production and COD consumption of both bioreactors over a wide range of operating conditions. Thus, the proposed modeling approach can be valuable in describing the behavior of different anaerobic digesters, using a minimal number of kinetic variables and kinetic/stoichiometric parameters.

Effect of reaction mode on biohydrogen production and its microbial diversity

Biohydrogen production using the high-rate reactor is promising due to its ability of maintaining higher biomass concentrations through forming granules or biofilms. This study investigated the effect of reaction mode on hydrogen fermentation by comparing an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) and a packed bed reactor (PBR). UASB and PBR were operated for 120 days at hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24-12 h and organic loading rates (OLRs) of 0.96–15.36 g COD/L/d. Both UASB and PBR achieved maximal hydrogen production rates as 2.77 ± 0.18 and 1.28 ± 0.12 L/L/d, respectively, at 15.36 g COD/L/d, corresponding to hydrogen yields of 1.44 ± 0.01 and 0.67 ± 0.06 mol/mol glucose. Illumina MiSeq sequencing results revealed Clostridium sp. was the dominant microbial consortium for hydrogen production in UASB (92.1%) and PBR (71.7%). Compared to UASB, PBR showed a greater microbial diversity of ethanol and lactic acid producers, and may be more favorable for methanogenesis and homoacetogenesis. This study demonstrates that reaction mode significantly influenced microbial diversity and biohydrogen production.

Modelling wastewater treatment in a submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor

Mathematical modelling has been widely applied to membrane bioreactor (MBRs) processes. However, to date, very few studies have reported on the application of the anaerobic digestion model N.1 (ADM1) to anaerobic membrane processes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of the ADM1 to a submerged anaerobic MBR (SAMBR) treating simulated industrial wastewater composed of cheese whey and sucrose. This study demonstrated that the biological processes involved in SAMBRs can be modelled by using the ADM1. Moreover, the results showed that very few modifications of the parameters describing the ADM1 were required to reasonably fit the experimental data. In particular, adaptation to the specific conditions of the coefficients describing the wastewater characterisation and the reduction of the hydrolysis rate of particulate carbohydrate (khyd,ch) from 0.25 d-1 (as suggested by the ADM1 for high-rate mesophilic reactors) to 0.13 d-1 were required to fit the experimental data.

Monitoring anaerobic digestion: a 2-year brewery case study

Operational data from an anaerobic wastewater treatment plant (expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) reactor) were analysed before and after a defect with the solids separator. The results presented suggest that a newly available method for the analysis of total volatile fatty acids (VFAs) was ideal as a rapid, onsite, operational indicator of reactor stability. These total VFAs were shown to provide an earlier warning of the separator problem than the other rapid routine methods of monitoring digesters such as alkalinity and suspended solids. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, pH and gas yield were not as useful for monitoring because of their slow response. The results are from a high rate reactor; the loads were 18 kg COD/m3/d in the first year and 26 in the second with 4·4 d hydraulic retention time. The results for both years of operation demonstrate a 95% conversion of COD into gas with an additional contribution from solids digestion (specific gas yield of 0·4 l methane (CH4)/g CODrem). This high performance was attributed to the solubility of the COD and the efficient EGSB mixing.

The effect of substrate concentration fluctuation on the performance of high-rate denitrifying reactor.

A high-rate denitrifying process is sensitive to the operation conditions and the substrate concentration fluctuation can lead to the deterioration or even collapse of process performance. The results of this study showed that the effect of substrate concentration fluctuation on the high-rate denitrification process was related to the substrate concentration and shock duration. The effect of substrate concentration was greater than that of shock duration and nitrate conversion was more sensitive than methanol conversion. The response of denitrification performance was related to the loading saturation (maximum loading rate/loading capacity ratio). When the loading saturation was lower than 32%, the high-rate denitrification process could stay in pseudo steady state, otherwise it would easily lose stability. The response of denitrification performance could be divided into three periods. The performance deterioration of high-rate denitrifying process could be attributed to the overload trigger and the toxicity of free nitrous acid.

Sludge bulking in a high-rate denitrifying automatic circulation (DAC) reactor

Sludge bulking and its effect on the performance of high-rate denitrifying automatic circulation reactor was studied in this paper. The results showed that, when the nitrogen loading rate and COD loading rate exceeded 65kgNm−3d−1 and 325kgCODm−3d−1, respectively, the nitrogen removal rate and COD removal rate decreased from 57.13kgNm−3d−1 and 232.57kgCODm−3d−1 to 38.08kgNm−3d−1 and 174.32kgCODm−3d−1, respectively. The performance of high-rate reactor deteriorated suddenly due to the insufficient biomass which originated from denitrifying sludge bulking and wash-out. The bulking denitrifying sludge was poor in settlement with the sludge volume index of 150.08±20.05mLg−1, and low in relative settling velocity ratio (average settling velocity to upflow velocity ratio) of 0.90±0.11. The denitrifying sludge bulking was identified as viscous bulking which was ascribed to the excessive production of extracellular polymers (EPS) (more than 450mggVSS−1) at the super high loading rate. The viscous bulking can be characterized by a noticeable decrease of bacteria/EPS ratio to 1.22±0.13 and a large increase of granule water content to 92.46±0.05%, which indicated that the bulking sludge lost its shape and approached its flow state.

The morphological and settling properties of ANAMMOX granular sludge in high-rate reactors

Digital macro photography and settling tests were carried out to investigate the morphological and settling characteristics of ANAMMOX granules in a high-rate reactor. The ANAMMOX granules could be divided into settling and floating granules. The settling granules with an average diameter of 2.96±0.99 mm were smaller than the floating granules with an average diameter of 4.58±1.22 mm. A settling model was established and validated to correlate the settling velocity with the density (ρG), mass shape factor (ψmass), shape-correction factor (characterized by sphericity (Φ(')) or roundness (ξ)) and projected area equivalent sphere diameter (dP) of ANAMMOX granules. The sphericity was more suitable than the roundness for describing the settling behavior. The sensitivity of four parameters was in the order of ρG,ψmass, dP and Φ('). Based on the settling model, ANAMMOX granules with diameter of 1.75-4.00 mm were supposed to be optimal for the ANAMMOX process.

Microbial consortium and its spatial distribution in a compartmentalized anaerobic reactor

The compartmentalized anaerobic reactor (CAR) is a patent novel high-rate reactor, which consists of three compartments. The reactor has a great potential for application due to its many advantages. In this work, the microbial consortium, spatial distribution, and their relationship with performance of CAR were investigated by means of polymerase chain reaction, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, and fluorescence in situ hybridization. The results showed that the predominant archaea were Methanobacterium, Methanosaeta, and Methanospirillum, and the predominant bacteria were Firmicutes, Deltaproteobacteria, Spirochaetes, Actinobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria in the microbial consortium. The methanogenic archaea (MA), the hydrogen-producing acetogenic bacteria (HAB), and the hydrolytic fermentative bacteria (HFB) were found to be predominant in the upper, middle, and bottom compartments, respectively. The results revealed that the granular sludge took on a stratified microbial structure. The HFB, HAB, and MA were located in the outer shell, middle layer, and core, respectively. The microbial populations from the bottom compartment were relatively homogeneous in the granular sludge, and from the middle and upper compartments, they were relatively heterogeneous in the granular sludge. The microbial consortia and their spatial distribution were in accordance with the organic loading rate and chemical components in the three compartments.

The structure, density and settlability of anammox granular sludge in high-rate reactors

Microscopic observation and settling test were carried out to investigate the structure, density and settlability of anammox granules taken from a high-rate upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. The results showed that the anammox granules were irregular in shape and uneven on surface, and their structure included granule, subunit, microbial cell cluster and single cell. The gas pockets were often observed in the anammox granules, and they originated from the obstruction of gas tunnel by extracellular polymer substances (EPSs) and the inflation of produced dinitrogen gas. The volume of gas pockets became larger with the increasing diameter of anammox granules, which led to the decreasing density and the floatation of anammox granules. The diameter of anammox granules should be controlled at less than 2.20mm to avoid the granule floatation. A hypothesized mechanism for the granulation and floatation of anammox biomass was proposed.

Comparative performance of anaerobic reactors for treatment of sago industry wastewater

For a country like India where energy continues to be precious, with oil prices continuing to rise unlike in the West, anaerobic digestion has far greater relevance than it has to many other regions of the world. The cassava starch production in our country is mainly concentrated in small to medium scale factories, which generates 30,000–40,000 l of effluent per ton of sago produced. The effluent is acidic and highly organic in nature having chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 5,000–7,000 mg l−1 during the season and 1,000–5,000 during the off-season. These effluents pose a serious threat to the environment and quality of life in the rural area. Since the treatment of cassava starch factory effluents through the normal biogas plants with 30–55 days retention period is very costly, attempts have been made to treat them through high-rate hybrid reactor with several hours of retention period. In Random-Packed Anaerobic Filter, the maximum COD reduction was observed (84.4 %) at 10 h hydraulic retention time (HRT). At 4 h HRT only 46.3 % COD was removed. Even though higher COD removal was achieved at 20 h, the better HRT was at 10 h as the difference between the 20 and 10 h HRT in only 0.2 %. In Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket reactor, the maximum COD removal (90 %) and total solid (TS) removal (82 %) were observed in a HRT of 30 h, whereas low COD (67 %) and TSs (64 %) removal was observed at 5 h HRT. The treatment of sago industry effluent in a hybrid reactor was studied and the HRT employed was 10, 24, 32, and 40 h. The COD removal rates were 86, 93, 94, and 95 %, and the TSs removal was 79, 85, 86, and 89 %. When the results of all these three reactors were compared, the hybrid reactor seems to be better with an optimum HRT range of 10–20 h. Hence, the anaerobic digestion has proved to be an effective method of treating the sago industry wastewater with simultaneous production of energy in the form of methane.

Hydraulic characteristics and their effects on working performance of compartmentalized anaerobic reactor

The compartmentalized anaerobic reactor (CAR) is a patent novel high-rate reactor and shows a great potential for its application. The hydraulic characteristics and their effects on the working performance of CAR were investigated. The flow pattern tended to plug flow at normal organic loading rate (OLR) and completely mixed flow at high OLRs. The relation of hydraulic dead space (HDS or Vh) with hydraulic loading rate (HLR or L) and biogas production rate (BPR or G) was Vh=3.75L+0.19G−9.47. The hydraulic efficiency of CAR was good or near to good. Both HLR and BPR had significant effects on the hydraulic efficiency, but their effect became less at super-high OLR. They also had a slight influence on the effective volume ratios of CAR, but the influence of BPR almost disappeared at super-high OLR. The good working performance of CAR was ascribed to the improved reactor configuration.

Strategies to suppress hydrogen‐consuming microorganisms affect macro and micro scale structure and microbiology of granular sludge

Treatment of anaerobic granules with heat and two chemical treatments, contacting with 2-bromoethanesulfonate (BES) and with BES + Chloroform, were applied to suppress hydrogen-consuming microorganisms. Three mesophilic expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) reactors-R(Heat), R(BES), and R(BES + Chlo)--were inoculated with the treated sludges and fed with synthetic sugar-based wastewater (5 g(COD) L(-1), HRT 20-12 h). Morphological integrity of granules and bacterial communities were assessed by quantitative image analysis and 16S rRNA gene based techniques, respectively. Hydrogen production in R(Heat) was under 300 mL H(2) L(-1) day(-1), with a transient peak of 1,000 mL H(2) L(-1) day(-1) after decreasing HRT. In R(BES + Chlo) hydrogen production rate did not exceed 300 mL H(2) L(-1) day(-1) and there was granule fragmentation, release of free filaments from aggregates, and decrease of granule density. In R(BES), there was an initial period with unstable hydrogen production, but a pulse of BES triggered its production rate to 700 ± 200 mL H(2) L(-1) day(-1). This strategy did not affect granules structure significantly. Bacteria branching within Clostridiaceae and Ruminococcaceae were present in this sludge. This work demonstrates that, methods applied to suppress H(2)-consuming microorganisms can cause changes in the macro- and microstructure of granular sludge, which can be incompatible with the operation of high-rate reactors.

Design, Commissioning, and Start-Up of a Sequentially Fed Leach Bed Reactor Complete with an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Digesting Grass Silage

In a wet digestion process, it is necessary to dilute high solid content feedstocks, such as grass silage. However, grass silage tends to be a problematic feedstock for wet digestion due to its tendency to float, to wrap around moving parts, and to cause inhibition to the microbial process due to production of ammonia. Grass silage may be better suited to batch digestion. However, in a batch process, half the feedstock is left behind after each cycle to provide innoculum for the next batch of feedstock. This reduces the effective reactor volume and increases capital costs. A solution is to combine the leach beds with a high-rate reactor. The system employed in this paper is termed a SLBR-UASB and is a two-phase process. The leach beds are the conduit for hydrolysis, and the methane production takes place in the UASB. The leach beds may be emptied at each cycle, reducing the size requirement of the leach beds to 67% of a pure batch system. This paper documents the problems in designing and commissioning a ...

Biphasic production of hydrogen and methane from waste lactose in cyclic-batch reactors

The biphasic production of the energy gases hydrogen and methane was possible in a fed batch culture resulting in a volumetric mix of approximately 20% H 2 and 80% CH 4 and an energy conversion efficiency of 95%, based on the measured Chemical Oxygen Demand and theoretical calculations assuming that the substrate (a dairy waste permeate) was lactose. Gas production showed a rapid initial phase over 0–20 h in which the composition was up to 50% hydrogen with the balance mainly carbon dioxide. This was accompanied by the accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in which butyric was predominant. A slower second phase of gas production produced a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide with a reduction in the accumulated acids. The duration of this second phase depended on the initial load applied to the reactor, and in the experiments carried out lasted between 6 and 12 days. Where the applied initial load led to an acid accumulation such that the pH fell below 5.5, the second phase of gas production was inhibited. Where pH control was exerted to prevent the pH dropping below 6.5, ethanol accumulated alongside VFA as a first phase product, with the gas comprised entirely of carbon dioxide. Despite the excellent energy conversion and the production of biogas fuel elements matching those for hythane (a mixture of hydrogen and methane, with improved combustion characteristics), the overall process loading was considered too low for efficient volumetric conversion of the feedstock to energy. The concept could be further developed based on high rate reactor systems with granular or immobilised biomass either as a single tank biphasic system or in a split tank two phase production process.

What type of digester configurations should be employed to produce biomethane from grass silage?

Abstract Grass is an excellent energy crop; it may be classified as a high yielding, low energy input, perennial crop. Over 90% of Irish agricultural land is under grass; thus farmers are familiar with, and comfortable with, this crop as opposed to a “new energy crop” such as Miscanthus. Of issue therefore is not the crop, but the methodology of generating energy from the crop. Numerous farmers across Europe (in particular Germany and Austria) use grass silage as a feedstock for biogas production; in a number of cases the produced biogas is scrubbed to biomethane and used as a transport fuel or injected into the natural gas grid. Many Irish farmers are considering converting from conventional farming such as beef production to grass biomethane production. Numerous technologies and combinations of such technologies are available; from one-stage batch dry systems to two-stage wet continuous systems; from one-stage continuous wet systems to two-stage systems incorporating a batch dry reactor coupled with a second stage high-rate reactor. This paper reviews work carried out both in the scientific literature and in practice at commercial scale.

Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors operated under high salinity conditions

Considering the importance of stable and well-functioning granular sludge in anaerobic high-rate reactors, a series of experiments were conducted to determine the production and composition of EPS in high sodium concentration wastewaters pertaining to anaerobic granule properties. The UASB reactors were fed with either fully acidified substrate (FAS) consisting of an acetate medium (reactor R1) or partly acidified substrate (PAS) consisting of acetate, gelatine and starch medium (reactors R2, R3, and R4). For EPS extraction, the cation exchange resin (CER) method was used. Strength and particle size distribution were determined by assessing the formation of fines sludge under conditions of high shear rate and by laser diffraction, respectively. Batch tests were performed in 0.25 L bottles to study Ca 2+ leaching from anaerobic granular sludge when incubated in 20 g Na +/L in the absence of feeding for 30 days. Results show a steady increase in the bulk liquid Ca 2+ concentration during the incubation period. UASB reactor results show that the amounts of extracted proteins were higher from reactors R2 and R3, fed with PAS compared to the sludge samples from reactor R1, fed with FAS. Strikingly, the amount of extracted proteins also increased for all reactor sludges, irrespective of the Na + concentration applied in the feed, i.e. 10 or 20 gNa +/L. PAS grown granular sludges showed an important increase in particle size during the operation of the UASB reactors. Results also show that, addition of 1 gCa 2+/L to the high salinity wastewater increases the granules' strength.

Microbial community in granules from a high-rate EGSB reactor

The spatial distribution, quantity and diversity of different microorganisms within anaerobic granular sludge from a lab-scale expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) reactor operated at different organic loading rates were studied using florescent in situ hybridization (FISH), real time quantitative-polymerase chain reaction (RTQ-PCR) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) techniques. The results indicated that most Eubacteria were located in the outer layer of granule, while the Archaea which mainly were methanogens and more sensible to the environmental conditions were located in the inner layer of the granule. The quantity of Archaea was obviously less than that of Eubacteria in the granules, but increased with the increasing of organic loading rates of the reactor. As the organic loading rate of the reactor increased and the operating time elapsed, the Archaea community in the granules changed significantly. Seven typical DGGE bands were collected and sequenced, and found that the dominant species of Archaea in the granules operated in the last period were mainly Methanocorpusculum, Methanobacterium, Methanosaeta.

Impacts of hydrodynamic shear force on nucleation of flocculent sludge in anaerobic reactor

The Sludge granulation in an anaerobic reactor consists of two steps: nucleation and maturation of nuclei. Nucleation as the starting point is of particular importance. In this paper, the nucleation of flocculent sludge as seed under weak, strong and violent hydrodynamic shear conditions is studied with an original quantitative method, and then the satisfactory linear correlations between the average sludge diameters and the operation time during the nucleation are demonstrated. Nucleation under strong shear conditions with a shear rate of about 8.28 s −1, corresponding to superficial liquid and gas velocities of 2.66 and 0.24 m h −1, develops fastest compared to weak shear conditions with a shear rate of about 0.04 s −1 and violent shear conditions with a shear rate of about 12.42 s −1 with the average augmentation rate of average sludge diameter of 0.57, 0.40 and 0.41 μm day −1 respectively. One of the major mechanisms of the shear force on nucleation is that a high shear force accelerates the extracellular protein secretion of sludge. Although high extracellular protein content benefits nucleation, it is also shown that the extracellular proteins over-produced above around 80.5 mg gVSS −1 leads nuclei to weaken and inhibit nucleation. So the violent shear force would result in disruption and wash-out of nuclei. However, the high extracellular polymers could intensify the shear force by raising the viscosity in the reactor, thus, in practice, it is important to monitor the shear conditions and extracellular protein content of sludge simultaneously in high rate reactors for stable operation.

Comparing the performance of UASB and GRABBR treating low strength wastewaters

Anaerobic technologies have proved successful in the treatment of various high strength wastewaters with perceptible advantages over aerobic systems. The applicability of anaerobic processes to treat low strength wastewaters has been increasing with the evolution of high-rate reactors capable of achieving high sludge retention time (SRT) when operating at low HRT. However, the performance of these systems can be affected by high variations in flow and wastewater composition. This paper reports on the comparative study carried out with two such high rate reactors systems to evaluate their performances when used for the treatment of low strength wastewaters at high hydraulic rates. One of the two systems is the most commonly used upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor in which all reactions occur within a single vessel. The other is the granular bed baffled reactor (GRABBR) that encourages different stages of anaerobic digestion in separate vessels longitudinally across the reactor. The reactors, with equal capacity of 10 litres, were subjected to increasing organic loading rates (OLRs) and hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of up to 60 kg COD m(-3) d(-1) and 1 h respectively. Results show that the GRABBR has greater processes stability at relatively low HRTs, whilst the UASB seems to be better equipped to cope with organic overloads or shockloads. The study also shows that the GRABBR enables the harvesting of biogas with greater energetic value and hence greater re-use potential than the UASB. Biogas of up to 86% methane content is obtainable with GRABBR treating low strength wastewaters.

Anaerobic digestion model no. 1-based distributed parameter model of an anaerobic reactor: I. Model development

This work presents a distributed parameter model of the anaerobic digestion process. The model is based on the Anaerobic digestion model no. 1 (ADM1) and was developed to simulate anaerobic digestion process in high-rate reactors with significant axial dispersion, such as in upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactors. The model, which was named ADM1d, combines ADM1’s kinetics of biomass growth and substrate transformation with axial dispersion material balances. ADM1d uses a hyperbolic tangent function to describe biomass distribution within a one compartment model. A comparison of this approach with a two-compartment, sludge bed – liquid above the bed, model showed similar simulation results while the one-compartment model had less equations. A comparison of orthogonal collocation and finite difference algorithms for numerical solution of ADM1d showed better stability of the finite difference algorithm.