Consequence of Hydraulic Retention Time on Fixed Film Reactor using Sugar Mill Wastewater

The utilization of large quantity of fresh water and the production of organic compounds as liquid effluents are major environmental problems in sugar cane processing industry. The endeavour of this learning is to treat the sugar mill wastewater by laboratory-scale up flow anaerobic fixed film reactor with a working volume of 13.0 litres. Which retains a high concentration of accumulated biomass in the form of fixed film supported by a carrier, has been developed to treat sugar mill wastewater. The effects of major process variables such as hydraulic retention time, chemical oxidation demand, volatile suspended solids, and biogas yield performances of the reactor were evaluated. The technology ensures the retention of the active methanogenic biomass within the reactor, independent of the HRT, of 3.00, 1.50, 1.00, 0.75 and 0.60 days. A sufficient amount of granular sludge was cultivated so that the reactor could accept the design loading within three months of operation. The maximum organic removal efficiency was achieved 86 % at an OLR of 0.288kg COD/m3/day with a HRT of 3 days.