Treatment of domestic wastewater in up flow anaerobic biofilters (using granite as packing material)

Abstract

Laboratory studies were conducted to assess the influence of media related factors such as porosity and pore size and specific surface area on performance of up flow anaerobic biofilters (ABFs). Two simple model of 8 litres capacity up flow anaerobic biofilters (ABFs), one packed with support media granite of size 50 to 40 mm and the other packed with granite of size 25 to 20 mm were installed. The experimental anaerobic biofilters were made of PVC tubes. The hydraulic retention time (HRT) was maintained as 12 hours. The study was carried out for a period of 90 days. The waste treatment performance indicates that the biofilter associated with media of the lesser pore size and porosity with higher specific surface area demonstrated the highest BOD and COD removal 91.03% and 82.50% respectively. Copyright � Enviromedia.