Abstract
Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the performances of anaerobic filters packed with ceramic tube and pall-ring media treating a dairy waste. The media packing volume was 65% of effective volume of anaerobic filter. Organics removals of anaerobic filters were maintained above 80% even at an organics loading rate of $10kgCOD/m^3/d$, and this was comparable to aerobic treatment of organic wastes. Organics removals of the ceramic tube anaerobic filters were always lower than those of the pall-ring anaerobic filters due to intrinsic physical property of ceramic tube, especially lower void space which caused to clogging and entrapment of biogas, substrate transfer limitation, and irregular evolution of biogas leading to loss of solids and biomass. This was clearly observed in higher concentration of TSS in the effluent from the ceramic tube anaerobic filter despite of higher retention capacity of TSS compared with pall-ring media. Vertical distribution of organics and solids in the filters showed above 90% of organics and solids in influent were removed below 20% of reactor height, and 50% of remaining organics and solids were removed though media packing zone. Effluent quality from the anaerobic filter was heavily depended on media itself as well as suspended biomass formed below media. It is therefore concluded that the type of media played an important role in biomass accumulation arid gas-liquid-solid separation efficiency. Type of media did not affect the start-up behaviors of the anaerobic filter, and supernatant from anaerobic digested sludge showed a good performance as a seeding materials.