Biphasic biomethanation of wood-hydrolysate effluent

The dissolving pulp industry, spread throughout the world, is the principal source of wood-hydrolysate effluent rich in hemicelluloses. This effluent is the major source of pollution in the industry. COD and BOD5 values of the effluent range from 60,000 to 103,000 and 42,000 to 78,000 mg/l respectively. Biomethanation of this effluent is the best possible treatment option for reducing the COD load and recovering the bioenergy embedded in the effluent. This paper deals with the study on the biphasic biomethanation of the wood-hydrolysate in upflow acidogenic reactor coupled with anaerobic filter methanogenic reactor. The two reactors were operated at organic loading rates of 69.6 and 30.1 g COD/l/d respectively. The overall COD, hemicelluloses and lignin reductions, and methane generation were observed to be 88%, 92%, 82% and 6.5 l/l reactor volume/d respectively. The relative size of the biphasic, anaerobic filter (mono-phasic) and upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (mono-phasic) reactors is found to be 1:1.6:2.03 respectively.