Conditioning of an anaerobic hybrid reactor for the treatment of effluents from the citrus industry
Pages : 1009-1013Download PDF
Southeastern Mexico is one of the country major citrus producing regions where a large volume of industrial effluents with high organic load are generated. In particular wastewater from the citrus industry can be treated by anaerobic digestion in bioreactors, as the Anaerobic Hybrid Reactor (AHR) which has the advantage of two reactor configurations in one device. The AHR was conditioned and operated for 30 days using an effluent of fruits and vegetables as substrate, while maintaining an OLR of 5 gCOD/L.d, pH = 6.6 to 7.7 and T = 35 °C ± 2. The monitored parameters were pH value, total and soluble COD, TSS, VSS, VS as biomass and biogas composition. The biofilm present in the support material of the inverse fluidized bed after the experiment was tripled, while the biomass in the anaerobic filter had a significant development, the pH was stable, removals of 60% were achieved in total COD, 86.90 and 90.80% for TSS and VSS respectively, a value of 0.3 LCH4/gCODrem for YCH4.
Keywords: Anaerobic digestion, substrate characterization, citrus industry