Revista de biorremediación y biodegradación

Abstracto

Municipal Wastewater Treatment By Using Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactor (Uasb) At Ambient Temperatures

Masood A.G. Ali

The overall aim of this investigation is to determine the characteristics of raw municipal wastewater and assess the performance of UASB reactors to treat municipal wastewater of Baniwaleed city. Libya, like many other developing countries, lacks municipal wastewater treatment facilities and almost total domestic wastewater is indiscriminately discharged untreated in sea or open damping, which can cause soil contamination, surface and groundwater contamination and ultimately risk to human being through food chain. This situation demands to reclaim nutrient rich municipal wastewater by using simple efficient and cost effective sewage treatment techniques compatible with local conditions. The results showed that UASB reactors operated at ambient temperatures were highly effective in the treatment of wastewater at influent COD concentration 629 mg l-1 COD at HRT from 24 to 6 hours with the specific methane yield obtained was around 0.32 l CH4 g-1 COD removed. COD removal efficiencies were high at 95 % and total suspended solid removal was around 95 %. The UASB technology provides a low-cost system for the direct treatment of municipal wastewater and can be applied in small communities where the wastewater flow variation is high due to rainy season or population load increases during the tourist season or due to seasonally operated food industries.