Performance of up flow anaerobic sludge fixed film bioreactor for the treatment of high organic load and biogas production of cheese whey wastewater

Among various wastewater treatment technologies, biological wastewater treatment appears to be the most promising method. A pilot scale of hybrid anaerobic bioreactor was fabricated and used for the whey wastewater treatment. The top and bottom of the hybrid bioreactor known as up flow anaerobic sludge fixed film (UASFF); was a combination of up flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) and up flow anaerobic fixed film reactor (UAFF), respectively. The effects of operating parameters such as temperature and hydraulic retention time (HRT) on chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and biogas production in the hybrid bioreactor were investigated. Treatability of the samples at various HRTs of 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours was evaluated in the fabricated bioreactor. The desired conditions for COD removal such as HRT of 48 hours and operation temperature of 40 °C were obtained. The maximum COD removal and biogas production were 80% and 2.40 (L/d), respectively. Kinetic models of Riccati, Monod and Verhalst were also evaluated for the living microorganisms in the treatment process. Among the above models, Riccati model was the best growth model fitted with the experimental data with R2 of about 0.99.