Sedimentological evolution in an UASB treating SYNTHES, a new representative synthetic sewage, at low loading rates

The changes in the sedimentological attributes of the sludge bed in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor fed with a low-strength wastewater mimicking raw domestic sewage were assessed in this study. The reactor was inoculated with 250 ml of granular sludge from a full-scale UASB reactor. The organic loading rate (OLR) varied from 1 to 2 g COD/l d. During the half-year long study, the reactor was operated at hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 4.8 and 10 h, at 33 °C. Sludge sedimentology showed that the original granular sludge experienced serious instability and disintegration, leading to a much finer final grain assemblage, mainly due to substrate transfer limitation and cell starvation at the interior of larger granules. With time, the size uniformity tended to decrease, sphericity tended to increase, the skewness of the granule size distribution became negative, and the kurtosis became peaked and leptokurtic. In spite of the observed size reduction, reactor efficiency increased to a CODtotal removal of 96%. Biomass (sludge) yield was 0.012 g VS/g COD removed. The CH4 content of the biogas was high (up to 96%). This study thus highlights the treatment of a new type of wastewater with the deployment of the UASB reactor. It also reports the evolutionary trend of the biomass particle size distribution, making reference to a classic sedimentological appraisal.