Treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor: Sludge characteristics

Aims: Present study was done by using upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor to investigate the effect of influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) and organic load rate on the formation of anaerobic granules in wastewater treatment. Martials and Methods: Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor with working volume 30 L was studied using actual slaughterhouse wastewater at a hydraulic retention time of 1.24 d and at temperatures in the range of 35°C ± 0.5°C for 320 days. The inoculum was extracted from the anaerobic digester of municipal sewage treatment plant, and the UASB reactor was filled with 8 L of sludge. Results: The results indicated that under the optimal conditions, about 94.6% of COD could be effectively removed from slaughterhouse wastewater with the UASB. The highest and lowest COD removal efficiency was 40.5 and 94.6% corresponding to influent COD of 1266.8 and 1222.2 mg/L, respectively. The fluctuation of solution pH in UASB operation was in the range of 6.68-8.03. The average of solution pH was 7.46 ± 0.36. The solution pH was gradually improved with UASB operation. Different granule sizes coexisted in the UASB reactor, but granules with the size of 1-3 mm were predominant. The maximum observed size of anaerobic granule was 7 mm. Conclusion: Application of slaughterhouse wastewater as feed wastewater demonstrated that the slaughterhouse wastewater to be more effective in promoting the formation of anaerobic granules and granule size in UASB reactor.