Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Parviz Mohammadi ¹
• Shaliza Ibrahim ²
• Mohamad Suffian Mohamad Annuar ³

¹ 1Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Public Health Faculty, Kermanshah University of Medical Science, Kermanshah, Iran.

² Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

³ Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

The hydraulic characteristic of an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket fixed film (UASB-FF) were studied by changing two important hydraulic factors that can impact significantly on the hydraulic regime of the UASB-FF bioreactor: the Up-flow velocity (V_up) and biogas production rate (Q_g). The analysis of the reactor hydraulic performance was performed by studying hydraulic residence time distributions (RTD) obtained from tracer (Rhodamine B) experiments. The region of exploration for the process was taken as the area enclosed by V_up (0.5 and 3.0 m/h) and Q_g (14.87 and 7.96 l/d). Three dependent parameters viz. deviation from ideal retention time ( , dead volume percentage and Morrill dispersion index (MDI) were computed as response. The maximum  and dead volume percentage were 33.58 min and 26 % at V_up of 0.5 m/h and Q_g of 14.87 l/d, respectively. While, the minimum responses (4.15 min and 19.3 %) were obtained at V_up of 3.0 m/h and Q_g of 7.96 l/d, respectively. The values of MDI computed at the minimum and maximum V_up and Q_g are identified as 11.33 and 10, respectively, showing that the hydraulic regime in UASB-FF bioreactor is a semi-complete mixing.

Keywords

• Up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket fixed film Hydraulic characteristics Tracer experiment