Evaluating the performance of anaerobic moving bed bioreactor and upflow anaerobic hybrid reactor for treating textile desizing wastewater

Abstract Performance and kinetic analysis of anaerobic moving bed bioreactor (AnMBBR) and upflow anaerobic hybrid reactor (UAHR) were investigated for the treatment of synthetic textile desizing wastewater (TDW) under organic loading rate (OLR) of 0.6–12 kgCOD/m3/day at thermophilic temperature (55 °C). The effects of increase in temperature (from 35 to 55 °C) on anaerobic treatment efficiency were studied. In the kinetic study for COD removal, first order substrate removal, Grau second order and modified Stover-Kincannon models were applied. By increasing temperature from 35 °C to 55 °C, COD removal, volumetric biogas production and methane content were increased 1.22, 2.58 and 1.08 times in AnMBBR. Whilst in the case of UAHR the increment for the aforementioned parameters were 1.10, 2.51 and 1.10 times, respectively. By increasing OLR from 0.6 to 6 kgCOD/m3/day, above 60% and 70% COD removal was observed, while the biogas increased from 0.12 to 0.97 L/L.day and 0.13–1.22 L/L.day for AnMBBR and UAHR, respectively. Up to an optimum OLR (6 and 8 kgCOD/m3/day for AnMBBR and UAHR) volumetric biogas production was also increased, simultaneously. Grau second order and modified Stover-Kincannon were found to be the best fit models (R2 =0.99). Biogas production and methane content in biogas were comparatively better in the case of real textile desizing wastewater due to lower sulfate concentration in the feed.