Abstract:
Combining the advantages of an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (DASB) and Anaerobic Filter , anaerobic hybrid reactor becomes a promising high efficiency reactor capable of treating rather high suspended solid waste. This type of reactor depends heavily on the biofilm formation on the supporting media. To reach its high performance faster, the acceleration of biofilm growth would be necessary particularly during start up period. This research was conducted to explore the influence of produced biogas recirculation on the accumulation of biomass on the media during start up. Six-liter reactors equipped with nylon fiber as the media were used. The density of the media was 22 kg/m'', The experiments were designed to study the ability of different gas flow rates to carry the biomass to the media and its effect on the treatment parameters.The study showed that 0.6 vG/v/d of biogas yielded similar results in term of substrate distribution compared to the recirculation of liquid (9.5 vL/v/d). However, this small flow rate of gas could not do well when it came to biomass distribution. To be able to blow the biomass from bottom to the top where the media were present, higher flow rate was needed. The influence of biogas recirculation to increase biomass accumulation on the media was separated into 2 experiments. The first experiment studied the biomass accumulation with biogas recirculation without growth effect (no carbon source in the synthetic waste). The other experiment was done with normal synthetic waste to detect the consequence of having the substrate on its treating performance. When considering only the recirculation effect, higher gas flow rate (1.8 vG/v/d) increased the amount of biomass on the media compared to both lower flow rate (0.6 vo/v/d) and even higher liquid flow rate (9.5 v/v/d). When the substrate was present in the feed, however, the number of biomass on the media increased even faster and generated more biogas to the system.To increase the amount of biomass on the media using either liquid or especially biogas recirculation, one of the problems that may come with it is the biomass washout. Therefore proper flow rate should be applied to the system to provide more benefit than troubles. The study indicated that the gas flow rates of 0.2, 0.6 and 0.9 vo/v/d were too low to promote the biomass accumulation on the media, whereas 3.6 vG/v/d was a bit too high causing a biomass detachment from the media. The biomass washout was also a huge problem with the high rate. High biomass accumulation around and on the media was found with the gas flow rate of 1.8 vo/v/d. Nevertheless, the gas recirculationtook effect only the first two week of the application.Considering the performance of the reactor with the gas recirculation of 1.8, 2.7 and 3.6 vG/v/d, low gas rate resulted in acid accumulation within the system causing pH to drop below 6 while high rate caused too much wash out problem. At 2.7 vo/v/d, the system seemed to work very well in this experiment. The outcome demonstrated that the accumulation of the biomass occurred within the first two week using the recirculation method after that the growth of the biomass would take control. The biogas flow rate applied in the system should be about 2.7 vG/v/d in order to support the proper accumulation and the system's treating efficiency.