The primary objective of this work was to investigate the treatability of very high suspended solids with different biodegradable particulate fractions, thin stillage (a by-product from the corn ethanol industry) as well as primary sludge, using an anaerobic fluidized bed bioreactor (AnFBR) employing zeolite with average diameter of (d m ) of 425-610 μm and specific surface area (SSA) of 26.5 m 2 /g as the carrier media. Due to the long-term impact of accumulation of inert suspended solids in the AnFBR and potential toxicity leading to failure, treatability of high suspended-solid streams can be very challenging. Despite the very high strength of thin stillage and primary sludge with chemical oxygen demand of 130,000 mg TCOD/L and 42,000 mg TCOD/L respectively and suspended solids of 47,000 mg TSS/L and 34,000 mg TSS/L, the AnFBR showed up to 88% and 82% TCOD and 78% and 82% TSS removal efficiencies from thin stillage and primary sludge respectively at very high organic and solids loading rates (OLR and SLR) of 29 kg COD/m 3 .d and 9.5 kg COD/m 3 .d and 10.5 kg TSS/m 3 .d and 10.3 kg TSS/m 3 .d respectively at hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 3.5 and 4 days. Maximum methane production yields of up to 40 L CH4 /L Thin stillage and 9.7 L CH4 /L PS were achieved for treating thin stillage and primary sludge respectively corresponding to biogas production rate per reactor volume of 15.8 L gas /L reactor .d and 1.22 L CH 4 /L reactor .d.
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