Nicolás Contreras

Daniela Ardila

Comparison of CSTR and AnMBR for anaerobic digestion

of WAS and lipid-rich flotation sludge from the dairy
industry

There is made a comparison between a CSTR and a AnMBR (anaerobic membrane

bioreactor) for the treatment of a lipid-rich flotation slude from the dairy industry and waste
activated sludge, it has a very important use, when high shares of lipids are present, for
wastewater sludge.

To reduce energy costs, highly loaded wastewater from the dairy industry was treated by
activated sludge processes in anaerobic conditions, the product obtained by this process
works for a wastewater treatment plant or biogas plant.

AnMBR are used to decouple hydraulic and sludge retention time compared to
conventional fill-and-draw CSTRs. This offers the opportunity to reduce the reactor
volumes.

Figure 1. Entire sketch of the process.

The procedure done was isothermic at 37ºC, both reactors were fed continuously. The
composition of the mixture was changed stepwise after operation of three sludge retention
times, also the analysis done was made at steady state.

To conclude, when comparing the CSTR and the AnMBR the methane yields are really
similar, both of them are higher than 280 L/kg, but for the CSTR had over 80% shares of
lipids, when for the AnMBR was obtained a 85% of shares lipids, which implies lipids are
available at anaerobic degradation decreasing the accumulation on the liquid surface of
the reactor. The AnMBR had a higher concentration of solids than the CSTR.
DOI: 10.1016/j.wri.2019.100122