• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.54-60
• /
• 1999

Three different types of lab-scale anaerobic bioreactors, AF and two-stage ASBF-PR and ASBF-SP, were evaluated in treating swine wastewater by operating at $1{\sim}2$ days of hydraulic retention time with increasing organic loading rate upto 6.3 $kg-COD/m^3{\cdot}d$ at $35^{\circ}C$. Seeding the anaerobic bioreactors with waste anaerobic digester sludge from a municipal wastewater treatment plant was effective and a 40-day acclimation period was required for steady-state operation. Three anaerobic bioreactors were effective in treating swine wastewater with COD removal efficiency of $66.4{\sim}84.9$% and biogas production rate of $0.333{\sim}0.796m^3/kg-COD_{removed}{\cdot}d$. Increases of organic loading rate by increasing influent COD concentration and/or decreasing hydraulic retention time caused decreases in COD removal efficiency and increases in biogas production rate. At relatively high organic loading rate employed in this study, the treatment efficiency of AF and ASBF-PR were similar but superior than that of ASBF-SP, indicating that porosity and pore size of the media packed in the bioreactors are more important factors contributing the performance of to bioreactors than specific surface area of the media. TKN in swine wastewater must be removed prior to the anaerobic processes when anaerobic process is considered as a major treatment process since influent TKN concentration of $1,540{\sim}1,870mg/L$ to the bioreactors adversely affect the activity of methanogenic bacteria, resulting in decreases of treatment efficiency and biogas production rate by 50%.