Abstract
Using synthetic wastewater and swine waste, a bench scale of fluidized bed methane fermentor was operated to elucidate its characteristics and probabilities for the treatment of wastewaters. The following results were obtained:
1) We have established the excellent startup of the reactor within 3 to 7 days using seeding sludge followed by separation of solids by sieve (2.0mm opening) under anaerobic condition (N2 purge).
2) Using synthetic wastewater, it was shown that the concentration of methane microbes in fluidized bed fermentor was ca. 10 times higher than that of the conventional methane fermentor. It would suggest that 80% of the substrate removal was due to the high SRT (over 12 days) which was established by the maintenance of methane microbes in the fermentor.
3) During the preliminary experiments using the supernatant of swine wastewater, 72% of VS removal and 0.75m3/kg-VS of gas yield were obtained at the maximum Lvs of 6.46kg-VS/m3·d.
Based on the results mentioned above, it would suggest that this type of methane fermentor has higher probabilty for the application of treatment of wastewater containing organic matters with high concentration.
