T. RAMESH AND V. NEHRU KUMAR
Abstract
Tapioca based sago and starch industries are agro based, and largely located in rural areas and in clusters. Despite many technological developments, these industries are still following very crude method of processing, resulting in huge quantity of water consumption 20 to 30 L per 1 Kg of sago production. The waste stream is highly biodegradable with BOD5 ranging from 2500 to 3500 mg/ L and COD at 2500 to 4500 mg/L. The Fixed Bed Fixed Film, anaerobic reactor is evaluated in this study. The experiment was conducted using a FBFF reactor model having 42.7 lit capacity and was run for varying Hydraulic Loading Rates, m3/m2. day (0.016, 0.011, 0.008, 0.005, 0.003), Organic Loading Rates, Kg COD/m2.day (0.013, 0.022, 0.031, 0.035, 0.040) and for varying Hydraulic Retention Time, hrs (7.30, 10.95, 14.60, 21.90, 43.80). The maximum removal of COD was observed at 80.61% for an organic load of 0.013 Kg COD/m2. day.