Abstract:
The concentrated latex wastewater contains various chemicals such as sulfate which is resulted from large amount of sulfuric acid used in production process to catch latex. So this process make negative effect on the environment, especially water pollution to natural water resources. The objective of this study was to investigate the performance of anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) in treating concentrated latex wastewater by varying baffle number or compartments in reactors and organic loading rates (OLR). ABR reactors consisting of 3, 5 and 7 baffles with the same total working volume of 14 L were used in this study. Each ABR was operated at HRT 5 days with OLR 1, 2 and 3 kgCOD / cb.m -day. From the results, it was found that the reactor with 7 baffles had the highest removal efficiencies for all parameters. At OLR 1 kgCOD / cb.m -day. ABRs with 3, 5 and 7 baffles had average COD removal performance were 89.92%, 92.77% and 93.84% respectively. Suspended solid removal performance were 79.40%, 82.32% and 85.99% respectively, ABRs almost completely removed sulfate from wastewater as removal percentages at 97.71%, 97.42% and 98.30%, respectively. When OLR was increased to 2 kgCOD / cb.m -day. ABRs with 3, 5 and 7 baffles had average COD removal at 85.31%, 86.93% and 89.07%, respectively; average suspended solid removal at 85.66%, 87.71% and 90.12%, respectively; average sulfate removal at 98.19%, 98.42% and 99.50%, respectively.