Effects of temperature on the degradation pathway of domestic sewage in upflow anaerobic sludge blanked reactor

To understand the anaerobic degradation pathway of domestic sewage,three lab-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanked reactors (UASB) were employed to study the degradation pathway of different particle size and the effect of temperature on this process.Under the operation conditions of the hydraulic retention time of 24 h,the MLVSS of approximate 11200 mg·L-1 and the water temperature at 10,15 and 20℃,the overall degradation pathway of soluble fraction was characterized according to zero-order kinetics.As for the colloidal fraction (between 0.45 and 4.5 μm),the degradation processes followed a first-order kinetic,and should firstly disintegrated into soluble fraction before finally degrading.In contrast,suspended solids (bigger than 4.5 μm) degraded to soluble and colloidal fractions according to first-order kinetics,and the colloidal fraction originating from suspended solids further degraded into soluble fraction which had the same degradation kinetics as the original soluble fraction.There existed the difference of temperature effect on different fraction degradation.Under the temperature at 20,15 and 10 ℃,the first-order rate constant of suspended solids depredating into collide was 4.97,3.01 and 1.01 d-1 respectively.Whereas the degradation of collide to soluble fraction was slightly affected by the temperature change.On the other hand,the zero-order degradation rate constant of soluble fraction was 0.26,0.18 g and 0.12 gCOD·gVSS-1d-1,respectively.