Characteristics of a novel anaerobic fluidized bed reactor for waste water treatment

A novel anaerobic fluidized bed reactor was designed and tested for the treatment of waste water. The system was designed on the basis of an anaerobic fluidized bed process. Small beads were tested for their potential for microbial attachment under anaerobic conditions. The properties of the solid supports and nature of the biofilm attached to them were determined relative to the bioconversion efficiency for converting of organic compounds to fermentation acids and methane gas. A simple method evolved from these studies for evaluating solid supports to be used in fluidized bed reactors. The performances of two parallel reactors with different solid supports showed that anion exchange resin beads were better than cation exchange resin beads as solid supports in the fluidized bed reactors. Lipid analysis was used as a signature marker to measure the microbial communities in the reactor.