Research Article Open Access

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF FIXED BED FIXED FILM ANAEROBIC REACTOR FOR TREATING DAIRY EFFLUENT

Abstract

 In recent times, the Dairy industries hrve started incorporating sophisticated processing equipments with CIP cleaning systems and PLC based process automation systems. As a result, the conventional water use pattern of 3:1 is largely reduced to almost less than one against one liter of milk processing. Also, the effluent characteristics were changed with COD restricted to 4000-5000 mg/L, BOD at 2500-3500 mg/L and pH from 5.5 – 8.5. The biodegradability of Dairy effluent is 0.625 to 0.70. Any anaerobic treatment at the first stage of the effluent treatment will greatly reduce the organic load over the subsequent aerobic reactor and ultimately enhance the overall waste removal efficiency and also bring down the cost of treatment. The Fixed Bed Fixed Film anaerobic reactor is evaluated with a laboratory model (42.70 L) for the treatment of Dairy effluent. The experiment was run for three different operating conditions viz., hydraulic Loading Rates, m3 /m2 .day (0.016, 0.011, 0.008, 0.005, 0.003), Organic Loading Rates, Kg COD/m2 .day (0.013, 0.022, 0.031, 0.035, 0.040) and hRT, hrs (7.30, 10.95, 14.60, 21.90, 43.80). The optimum COD removal was observed for 80.88% and the biogas conversion was 0.318 m3 per Kg COD removed.

 T. RAMESH AND V. NEHRU KUMAR

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