Abstract
Fluidized-bed granular activated carbon (GAC) anaerobic reactors have been under development to treat wastewaters which contain high concentration of inhibitory and/or refractory compounds as well as easily biodegradable organic compounds. The processes are characterized by the combined physical and biological removal mechanisms ; that is, adsorption by the GAC medium and biodegradation by the attached bacteria on the medium. A simple mathematical model, which incorporates these two mechanisms and was developed for the artificial waste-water containing 3-ethylphenol and acetic acid, was applied to the simulation of the gasification wastewater treatment after a little modification. The values of constants and coefficients included in the model equations were estimated with values obtained for the artificial wastewater and the experimental data for one case of three cases of the experiment simulated. It was demonstrated that the modified simple model is able to simulate the changes with time in effluent soluble COD, COD retained in the GAC medium and daily methane production under different operational conditions. And qualitative and quantitative relationships between each state variables and predominant mechanisms under each operational condition were discussed through the comparison between experimental data and simulated results.
