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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Continuously-stirred Anaerobic Digester to Convert Organic Wastes into Biogas: System Setup and Basic Operation
Published on: July 13, 2012
Characterization and modeling of nutrient-deficient tomato-processing wastewater treatment using an anaerobic/aerobic
Zhongda Xu1, George Nakhla, Jignesh Patel
1Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada N6A 5B9.
Abstract:
Tomato-processing wastewaters are typical of slowly biodegradable high strength wastewaters generated from the food canning industry. Three different samples of influent and three samples of anaerobic effluents corresponding to the three influents collected from an on-site pilot-scale anaerobic/aerobic system were characterized using respirometric methods. Respirometric studies demonstrated that the pretreatment in the anaerobic reactor of the pilot-scale system increased the readily biodegradable fraction from an average of 40% of the SCOD in the influent to 50% of the SCOD in the anaerobic effluent, improved kinetics from an average micro(max) of 1.5d(-1) in the influent to 3.5d(-1) in the anaerobic effluent, and eliminated nutrient deficiency. Furthermore, the system was calibrated and simulated by application of wastewater characterization and biokinetic data derived form respirometric tests of influent and anaerobic effluent in Activated Sludge Model no.1 (ASM1).
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