The treatment of cheese whey wastewater by sequential anaerobic and aerobic steps in a single digester at pilot scale Frigon, J.-C.; Breton, J.; Bruneau, T.; Moletta, R.; Guiot, S. R. The treatment of reconstituted whey wastewater was performed in a 400 L digester at 20°C, with an anaerobic digestion step, followed by a step of aerobic treatment at low oxygen concentration in the same digester. In a first set of 48 cycles, total cycle time (T C ) of 2, 3 and 4 days were tested at varying organic loading rates (OLR). The COD removal reached 89 ± 4, 97 ± 3 and 98 ± 2% at T C of 2, 3 and 4 days and OLR of 0.56, 1.04 and 0.78 gCOD L À1 d À1 , respectively. The activity of the biomass decreased for the methanogenic population, while increasing by 400% for the acidogens, demonstrating a displacement in the predominant trophic group in the biomass bed. A second set of 16 cycles was performed with higher soluble oxygen concentration in the bulk liquid (0.5 mg L À1 ) during the aerobic treatment at a T C of 2 days and an OLR of 1.55 gCOD L À1 d À1 , with a soluble COD removal of 88 ± 3%. The biomass specific activities showed a compartmentalization of the trophic group with methanogenic activity maintained in the biomass bed and a high acidogenic activity in the suspended flocs.Crown
A proof of concept was performed in order to verify if the coupling of anaerobic and aerobic conditions inside the same digester could efficiently treat a reconstituted whey wastewater at 21 degrees C. The sequencing batch reactor (SBR) cycles combined initial anaerobic phase and final aerobic phase with reduced aeration. A series of 24 h cycles in 0.5 L digesters, with four different levels of oxygenation (none, 54, 108 and 182 mgO2 per gram of chemical oxygen demand (COD)), showed residual soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD) of 683 +/- 46, 720 +/- 33, 581 +/- 45, 1239 +/- 15 mg L(-1), respectively. Acetate and hydrogen specific activities were maintained for the anaerobic digester, but decreased by 10-25% for the acetate and by 20-50% for the hydrogen, in the coupled digesters. The experiment was repeated using 48 h cycles with limited aeration during 6 or 16 hours at 54 and 108 mgO2gCODinitial(-1), displaying residual sCOD of 177 +/- 43, 137 +/- 38, 104 +/- 22 and 112 +/- 9 mgL(-1) for the anaerobic and the coupled digesters, respectively. The coupled digesters recovered after a pH shock with residual sCOD as low as 132 mg L(-1) compared to 636 mg L(-1) for the anaerobic digester. With regard to the obtained results, the feasibility of the anaerobic-aerobic coupling in SBR digesters for the treatment of whey wastewater was demonstrated.
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