(88c) Theoretical and Experimental Study of Anaerobic Fluidized Bed Reactor: Case of Pharmaceutical Wastewater Treatment

The successful design and operation of an anaerobic fluidized bioreactor depend on the ability to predict the fundamental properties of the system, including hydrodynamics, individual phase mixing, and heat and mass transfer properties. In this context, this study focuses on an experimental and theoretical study of such a reactor for treating pharmaceutical wastewaters.

The experimental setup consists of a mesophilic lab-scale reactor, with three kinds of support (sand, glass beads and PVC beads) for biofilm development, knowing that biological fluidized bed reactor has two types of bed expansion, the first one is due to an increase of the superficial velocity and the second to the microbial growth in the bed.

The predicted and measured responses of hydrodynamic and biological variables are investigated and experimental data were used to apply known models used for bed expansion and particle mixing characteristics, pressure drop, predicting the biofilm development, and biomass hold-up empirical values of biofilm detachment coefficient for the case of a synthetic water biotreatment containing the methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate, which shows promising results and that will be also discussed.