Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Process Safety and Environmental Protection

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psep

High-rate anaerobic digestion of yogurt wastewater

in a hybrid EGSB and fixed-bed reactor: Optimizing
through response surface methodology

Y. Mortezaei, T. Amani, Sh. Elyasi ∗

Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Dairy production industry is one of the most polluting industries since it generates large
Received 3 August 2017 volumes of high-strength wastewater. In this research, we studied the interactive effects
Received in revised form 15 October of chemical oxygen demand (COD), hydraulic retention time (HRT), and COD/nitrogen ratio
2017 (COD/N) on the performance of a hybrid expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) and fixed-
Accepted 16 October 2017 bed (FB) bioreactor treating yogurt effluent was studied. For this purpose, response surface
Available online 4 November 2017 methodology (RSM) was applied to predict the behaviors of the system in term of COD
removal and biogas production rate (BPR). RSM showed that the best models for COD removal
Keywords: and biogas production rate were the cubic and quadratic models, respectively. The optimum
Anaerobic digestion region of the hybrid EGSB-FB reactor was acquired at influent COD of 11,200 mg/L, HRT of
Yogurt wastewater 27 h, and COD/N ratio of 51. These variables resulted in a 90% COD removal efficiency and
Hybrid EGSB-FB a 180 mL/h BPR. COD/N ratio (relevant coefficient = 4.37) and influent COD (relevant coeffi-
Response surface methodology cient = 29.99) resulted respectively as the most effective parameters on COD removal and
(RSM) BPR.
COD removal © 2017 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Biogas production

1. Introduction
In most countries, production of dairy wastewater has been increas-
ing due to a large growing demand for milk and its derived products.
The dairy industry is one of the major sources of foods processing
wastewater (Tikariha and Sahu, 2014), in which the cleaning tanks,
milk silos, transport lines, and miscellaneous equipment generate a
large content of effluents. Such wastewater is characterized by a high
chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD),
organic materials (fat, protein, and carbohydrates), nutrients (nitrogen
and phosphorous), suspended solids, detergents, and sanitizing agents
(Demirel et al., 2005). Organic components have negative effects on
the chemical and physical structure of the environment (Kadu et al.,
2013; Tikariha and Sahu, 2014). In addition, depending on nutrients
and detergents concentration, serious environmental problems such as
eutrophication in ground and surface water could influence the aquatic
life. Therefore, appropriate treatment techniques are needed so that
∗ 2015).
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Shilan.Elyasi@aut.ac.ir (Sh. Elyasi).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2017.10.012
0957-5820/© 2017 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
the effluent quality meets the standards discharge criteria (Kushwaha
et al., 2011).
In recent decades, anaerobic digestion, as a biological process of
organic matter decomposition, has been received the growing atten-
tion of researchers mainly because of its considerable advantages
such as reducing the pathogens levels, renewable energy production,
use of non-sophisticated equipment, decreasing the odor problems
(Wilkie, 2003), the low operating and capital costs (Dai et al., 2011),
a high treatment efficiency, a low sludge production, and treatment
of high-strength organic wastewaters containing refractory and toxic
compounds (Imen et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2010). The most interest-
ing application of anaerobic treatment is the generation of extremely
energy in the form of methane which can be used in substitution
for fossil energy in both heat and power generations in addition
to the required energy for mixing digester and temperature adjust-
ment (Amani et al., 2010; Gallert and Winter, 2008). Up to now, many
investigators reported setups to treat various wastewater categories
in different conditions such as expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB)
(Dastyar et al., 2015), fixed-bed (Gonzalez et al., 2012), membrane biore-
actor (Saddoud et al., 2007), upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB)
(Amani et al., 2015), and anaerobic baffled reactors (ABR) (Elyasi et al.,
256 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263

Fig. 1 – Schematic representation of the EGSB-FB set–up: (1) Feed reservoir, (2) influent pump, (3) EGSB reactor and sludge, (4)
belt heating resistor, (5) temperature probe, (6) temperature controller, (7) EGSB recirculation, (8) sample port 1, (9) sample
port 2, (10) sample port 3, (11) FB reactor, (12) packed (vesicular basalt), (13) EGSB-FB effluent outlet, (14) gas–solid–liquid
separator, (15) biogas collecting vessel and (16) effluent reservoir.

Table 1 – The levels of factors in the experiments based on the central composite design (CCD).
Factors Low axial (−˛) Low factorial (−1) Center (0) High factorial (+1) High axial (+˛)

A: COD (mg/L) 1000 3738 8000 12,162 15,000

B: HRT (h) 25 40 63 86 100
C: COD/N 50 70 100 130 150

Several studies predicate the poor performance of UASB reactor in
psychrophilic conditions and treatment of low strength wastewater
due to the slow operating of chemical and biological reactions as well
ineffective interior mixing. To deal with the problems accompanied
by the recirculation of effluent and the height to width ratio of reac-
tor (which intensify hydraulic mixing and reducing dead zone of UASB
reactor and consequently promote the wastewater-biomass contact),
the expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) bioreactor was developed as
a modified reactor of the traditional UASB (Chou et al., 2011; Lim and
Kim, 2014).
EGSB has been successfully applied to treat domestic and indus-
trial wastewater (Delforno et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2010) with low-to-high
strength organics (Lim and Kim, 2014) and with highly toxic or refrac-
tory compounds (Chen et al., 2009; Enright et al., 2007). EGSB reactor
is effective in eliminating soluble pollutants, but not effective in con-
siderable removal of suspended solids from the wastewater stream
(Seghezzo et al., 1998). To enhance the efficiency of the process, increase
the biogas production, and increase suspended solid removal, more
sophisticated systems are implemented (Karakashev et al., 2008). Fur-
thermore, despite various advantages of EGSB reactors such as low
costs, easy in operation, biogas production, and less amount of sludge
generation, in some cases, the effluent does not meet standards dis-
charge criteria (Gupta et al., 2010). Combining two or several same
or different methods called ‘hybrid reactor’ may recover the men-
tioned drawbacks of the process and enhance the efficiency of treating
wastewater (Lee and Han, 2012; Sawajneh et al., 2010).
A suitable fixed-bed reactor is one of the attached growth system
in which the biomass is immobilized by entrapment and adhesion in a
support matrix (Alves et al., 2001) that causes an increase in biomass
and wastewater contact and subsequently improves treatment effi-
ciency and biogas production (Karakashev et al., 2008). As a result, a
hybrid system, which enjoys the best characteristics of both EGSB and
FB reactors, was applied in the present research.
Several investigations examined the influence of altering major var-
ious operational parameters integrally and simultaneously, while the
application of optimization methods and interactive effects of param-
eters have been neglected. To overcome the problem involved in the
classic methods of optimization, which is the need for large times
and costs, response surface methodology (RSM) is used (Ghorbanian
et al., 2014). RSM is a set of mathematical and statistical techniques for
experimental design, evaluation of factors, model development, and
optimization of an unknown function through simpler approximat-
ing functions, by which the overall effects of the parameters on the
process and interaction effects among variables are described (Amani
et al., 2011; Del Castillo, 2007). Furthermore, RSM permits not only the
analysis of how sensitive the optimum conditions are to variations in
operational but also it makes different projections that provide graph-
ical illustrations for a visual interpretation of the functional relations
between the responses and operational parameters (Myers et al., 2016;
Rastegar et al., 2011).
The main goal of current research was the treatment of yogurt
wastewater by means of hybrid EGSB-FB process which was not inves-
 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263 257

Fig. 2 – Actual vs. predicted values of COD removals.

Table 2 – The experimental plan of EGSB-FB reactor and its raw responses results (COD removal and BPR).
Run Factors Responses
3
Influent COD (mg/L) HRT (h) COD/N Final COD (mg/L) OLR (kg/m day) COD Removal (%) BPR (mL/h)

1 1000 63 100 290 0.38 71 5.61

2 3738 86 130 747 1.043 80 17
3 3738 86 70 673 1.043 82 18
4 3738 40 130 785 2.24 79 37
5 3738 40 70 710 2.24 81 38
6 8000 100 100 880 1.9 89 35
7 8000 63 150 1760 3.047 78 50
8 8000 63 100 1120 3.047 86 54
9 8000 63 100 1040 3.047 87 55
10 8000 63 100 1040 3.047 87 55
11 8000 63 100 960 3.047 88 56
12 8000 63 100 960 3.047 88 56
13 8000 63 50 560 3.047 93 59
14 8000 25 100 960 7.68 88 141
15 12,162 86 130 2797 3.39 77 55
16 12,162 86 70 973 3.39 92 66
17 12,162 40 130 2797 7.3 77 116
18 12,162 40 70 973 7.3 92 139
19 15,000 63 100 3300 5.71 78 93

tigated in preceding works. The secondary objective of this work is
analyzing and correlating the process taking into account the simul-
taneous effects of three operating parameters (influent COD, HRT, and
COD/N) on two responses (COD removal and BPR) by the RSM and
determine the most affected operational parameter on the mentioned
responses. The tertiary objective is achieving the empirical model of
yogurt wastewater treatment to attain the optimum conditions of the
process. This work is the first report on the application of combined
RSM-CCD technique for optimizing the yogurt wastewater treatment
process by EGSB-FB system.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Reactors configuration
The schematic of the laboratory-scale EGSB-FB bioreactor used
in this study is illustrated in Fig. 1. The EGSB-FB reactor was
made of a glass cylinder with a height of 825 mm and an
interior diameter of 104 mm. The total volume of the EGSB-
FB reactor was 6.8 L whereas the effective volumes of EGSB
and FB were 5.4 and 0.85 L, respectively. The EGSB-FB system
includes three sections; bottom, middle, and top. The bottom
part of the reactor (height = 625 mm) operates as an EGSB reac-
tor, the middle part (height = 100 mm) operates as a fixed bed
reactor, and the funnel-shaped top part of the reactor with
a height of 100 mm operates as a gas–liquid–solid separator,
which directs the biogas to the collecting vessel and sepa-
rates the biogas and washed-out solids from the effluent liquid
phase. The middle section of the EGSB-FB reactor was hap-
hazardly filled with vesicular basalts as a porous static media,
which provides a regular surface with a diameter of 15–25 mm
and porosity about 76%. EGSB reactor with a height/diameter
ratio equal to 6 has three sampling ports located at equal
distances. The feed and recirculation flow (upflow velocity
of about 1 m h−1 ) were constantly feeding the system with a
peristaltic pump. The temperature of the hybrid reactor was
kept in mesophilic condition (35 ± 1 ◦ C) with four hoop heat-
ing resistors (250 w) attached to the outside surface of the
reactor.
258 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263
Fig. 3 – Contour plots of the interactive effect for COD removal (A) effect of influent COD and HRT (B) effect of influent COD
and COD/N ratio and (C) effect of HRT and COD/N ratio.
Table 3 – ANOVA results for the correlations from DX–7 for COD removal and BPR.
Response Model
F value P-value
COD removal (%) Cubic model 50.45 0.0002
BPR (mL/h) Quadratic 46.02 <0.0001
2.2. Inoculums and start-up
The hybrid reactor inoculated with granules sludge was
obtained from a full-scale UASB treating dairy wastewater
(2.5 L EGSB and 0.35 L FB). The total suspended solids (TSS),
total volatile solids (TVS), and pH of the inoculated sludge
granules (inoculated biomass) were 16.1 g/L, 58 g/L, and 7.0,
respectively. The reactor was fed with molasses in HRT = 63 h
and COD = 1000 mg/L gradually varying up to COD = 4500 mg/L
until the granules are adapted and the performance of
biomass is improved. After this stage, molasses and yogurt
wastewater were blended and fed to the hybrid system with
different ratios. This process was continued until molasses
was eliminated. With slowly diminishing of molasses and
stepwise adding of yogurt wastewater, the EGSB-FB reached
the steady-state conditions. The start-up period lasted three
months.
2.3. Experimental procedure
The main objective of this study is to optimize selected vari-
able factors including COD, HRT, and COD/N to evaluate the
performance of the process by analyzing COD removal and
BPR as responses. The levels of these factors are presented in
ANOVA
2
R Adj. R2 SD AP CV
0.9924 0.9728 1.05 24.236 1.26
0.9787 0.9575 7.72 25.417 12.79
Table 1. The central composite design (CCD), as the most pop-
ular class of second-order designs, was performed for the RSM
in the design of the experiment and represented in Table 2.
Each factor was coded at five levels between
−˛ and +˛, whereas the independent factors were
COD = 1000–15,000 mg/L, HRT = 25–100 h, and COD/N = 50–150.
The total number of experiments was 19, with 8 experiments
being as full factorial, 6 runs at axial points, and 5 replications
at the design centers performed to assess the pure error.
These replicates are operated under constant conditions in
the medium point of all parameters range. In this way, the
negligible (or considerable) fluctuation of results in those 5
replication points would elucidate the stability (or instability)
of reactor for long-term conditions.
A blocking-stepwise procedure was applied, in which the
experiments were switched based on the increase of COD,
decrease of HRT and increase of COD/N. Additionally, each
experiment was done twice which in turn means the operation
occurred for double HRT to determine the stability of reactor in
terms of responses, i.e. COD removal and biogas production.
The negligible variation in measured responses exposed the
high stability of anaerobic digester. Eventually, the average of
the measurement was reported in the paper.
 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263
Fig. 4 – Actual vs. predicted values of biogas production rate.
Table 4 – Verification experiments at optimum conditions.
Influent COD HRT (h) COD/N COD removal
(mg/L) (%) (model)
11200 27 51 92
2.4. Wastewater characteristics
The yogurt wastewater used in this study was obtained from
the dairy factory in the city of Sanandaj in Iran. Different dilu-
tions of yogurt wastewater based on design experiment were
prepared using tap water. NaNO3 was added to feed as a nitro-
gen source to adjust the ratio of C/N, which was varied from
350:7 to 1000:7. It was not necessary to adjust the pH of the
reactor during the whole operation period because it remained
approximately constant (about 6.2–7.8).
2.5. Analytical methods
To evaluate the performance of the EGSB-FB reactor, COD and
BRP were analyzed. COD was determined by the procedure
outlined in standard methods and BPR measurements were
done via water displacement method (A.P.H. Association et al.,
1913).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Statistical analysis
In order to find the relationship between operating parameters
and process responses, CCD method (a second-order design
used in RSM) was selected. Table 2 displays a comprehen-
sive list of 3 independent variables (HRT, influent COD, and
COD/N ratio) in terms of actual units, and the experimental
data obtained for two responses (COD removal and BPR). In
this study, 19 experimental runs were performed by CCD in
accordance with Table 2. Quadratic and cubic models were
used for the data fitting in order to quantify the curvature
effects for COD removal and BPR, respectively. The analysis of
variance (ANOVA) results for the relevant responses are sum-
marized in Table 3. Since the amount of R-squared (R2 ) and
adjusted R-squared (Adj-R2 ) between experimental and model
predicted are near to each other and close to 1.0, the fit of the
259
COD removal (%) BPR (mL/h) BPR (mL/h)
(experiment) (model) (experiment)
90 186 180
models was verified. Adequate precision (AP ≥4) was demon-
strated by the range measurement of the predicted response
relative to its associated error (Pirsaheb et al., 2015). It has to be
noted that the desired numbers of AP were 24 for COD removal
and 51 for BPR. Low amounts of responses for variation coeffi-
cients (1.26% for COD removal and 4.78% for BPR) indicate the
high accuracy and reliability of experiments as suggested by
Merajin et al. (2014). F-test was applied to assess the adequacy
of correlations. The lack of fit F-statistics was not statistically
significant owing to the low p-values number (<0.0005).
3.2. COD removal
The following regression equation in a cubic model is the
empirical model proposed in this work in terms of coded fac-
tors for COD removal:
COD removal = 87.48 + (2.14A) + (0.40B) − (4.37C)
+ (−0.34AB) − (3.36AC) − (1.250E−003 BC) − 4.65 A2
+ 0.41 B2−0.77 C2 + 1.250E−003 ABC−0.017 A2 B
+ 0.014 A2 C + 0.016 AB2
where A is influent COD in mg/L, B is HRT in h, and C is the
ratio of COD/N. Fig. 2 presents a good convergence between the
actual and the predicted values of the COD removal efficiency,
suggesting that the actual values are distributed relatively
close to the straight line (y = x) (the amount of R2 and adjusted
R2 are 0.9924 and 0.9728, respectively).
Fig. 3A shows the combined effect of the two factors (influ-
ent COD and HRT) on COD removal efficiency obtained from
the above equation, where COD/N ratio is in its central domain
(100). The capability of this reactor in treating low- to high-
strength yogurt wastewater is proved in both Fig. 2 and Table 2.
It is clear from the figure that for COD concentration below
9000 mg/L, in all HRTs domain increasing COD from 1000 to
260 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263

Fig. 5 – Contour plots of the interactive effect for BPR (A) effect of influent COD and HRT (B) effect of influent COD and COD/N
ratio.

9000 mg/L leads to an increase in the COD removal from 70
to 88%. According to Ghorbanian et al. (2014), influent COD
could be increased rapidly until it reaches the stable region
with no debilitation in EGSB operation. Moreover, for influent
CODs more than 9000 mg/L, an increase in COD concentra-
tion leads to a decrease in COD removal from 88 to 80%. An
explanation for this result is the overloading of organic com-
pounds in the reactor and consequently the lack of enough
nutrients and time to complete anaerobic digestion. As can
be seen from Fig. 2, in a constant COD concentration, altering
HRT does not change the COD removal remarkably. As men-
tioned earlier, EGSB is a capable reactor in treating low- to
high-strength wastewater (Dastyar et al., 2015), also proved
in the present work. For instance, in HRT equal to 58 h, treat-
ing a low-strength wastewater (influent COD = 1500 mg/L) and
high-strength wastewater (influent COD = 11,500 mg/L) leads
to the removal of COD into 73% and 83%, respectively. Meng
et al. treated an antibiotic-containing synthetic wastewater by
EGSB reactor. They reported that the amount of COD removal
for an effluent with COD concentration of 8000 mg/L and HRT
of 19 days is up to 89% (Meng et al., 2015). Also, Dastyar et al.
(2015) reported that the efficiency of COD removal in EGSB
reactor in treating high-strength leachate (COD concentra-
tion = 8000 mg/L) at HRT = 63 h is about 88%. The results of
the present work show that the amount of COD removal in
HRT = 63 h and influent COD = 8000 mg/L is up to 87%. Accord-
ing to COD removal equation, the coefficients of COD and HRT
parameters were 2.14 and 0.40, respectively, that emphasize
the higher impact of COD on COD removal in contrast with
HRT. Since the impact of HRT on the efficiency of the reactor
was not significant, for all COD concentration, the best per-
formance of process was at low HRTs. The interaction of COD
 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263
concentration and HRT (relevant coefficient = −0.34) in the cor-
relation of COD removal confirms that the interactive between
mentioned factors are insignificant.
As mentioned previously, the presence of some nutrients
such as nitrogen is an essential need to accomplish a success-
ful anaerobic granulation process. Basically, in the first step
of granulation process, more nutrients bear more improve-
ment of the process with no inhibitory effect (Singh et al.,
1999). The presence of nutrients could prevent the granules
from floating and reduce the effects of organic loading shocks
(Alphenaar et al., 1993). Some investigations reported that if
the concentration of nitrogen becomes less than 300 mg/L in
the feed, the growth of granules falls down rapidly (Singh et al.,
1999). On the other hand, a high concentration of nitrogen can
lead to accumulation of ammonia and consequently intensify
inhibitory effects (Jarrell and Kalmokoff, 1988). Therefore, the
accurate determination of COD/N ratio could adjust the total
ammonia concentration of feed precisely (Rajagopal et al.,
2013).
Fig. 3B shows the effects of COD and COD/N ratio on the
COD removal efficiencies. The contours show that for COD
concentrations more than 2000 mg/L, a decrease in COD/N
ratio (i.e., increase in nitrogen concentration) enhances the
efficiency of the process. On the other hand, for COD con-
centration less than 2000 mg/L, decreasing the COD/N ratio
from 150 to 100 increases the removal efficiency while a more
COD/N reduction leads to the reduced COD removal. More
specifically, by increasing COD in a constant COD/N ratio, at
first, the percentage of COD removal increases in a specific
domain and then decreases due to the shortage of available
nitrogen for microorganisms in higher organic loading rate.
Moreover, by reducing COD/N ratio, the maximum values of
each contour moves to a higher amount of COD concentra-
tion. As can be seen from the figure, at influent COD equal to
15,000 mg/L, decreasing COD/N from 150 to 50 could enhance
COD removal efficiency up to 30%, demonstrating the signif-
icant role of nutrients. The best option to achieve more COD
removal efficiency at low and high COD concentrations is a
high and low level of COD/N ratio, respectively. In this connec-
tion, the effect of nitrogen on process efficiency at high COD
concentrations is much more than low levels. The relevant
coefficients of COD and COD/N were 2.14 and 4.37, respectively,
which reveal COD/N has so higher impact on COD removal
against with influent COD. The interaction of COD concentra-
tion and COD/N with a relevant coefficient equal to −3.36 in
the correlation of COD removal confirms that the interaction
between them was significant.
Fig. 3C presents the simultaneous effect of HRT and COD/N
ratio on COD removal efficiency. Also, according to the results
presented in COD removal equation, the coefficients of HRT
and COD/N were 0.4 and −4.37, respectively, which empha-
size the more effect of COD/N than HRT on COD removal. Same
results were seen from the figure. The coefficient of interac-
tions between HRT and COD/N ratio is −1.250E−003, which
expresses the insignificance of their interactions.
3.3. Biogas production rate
Based on the experimental results shown in Table 2, to
achieve a realistic model, a second-order polynomial equation
(quadratic model) was selected to describe the variation of bio-
gas production as a response to the changes in the variables.
The coded regression equation for maximum biogas produc-
261
Fig. 6 – Linear relationship between OLR and BPR.
tion rate can be seen in Eq. (2):
Biogas production rate (mL/h) = +55.66 + 29.99A
− 25.68B − 3.75C − 11.87AB − 4.1AC + 1.6BC
− 2.98A2 + 10.76B2 − 1.22C2 (2)
where A is influent COD, B is HRT, and C is COD/N ratio. The
results of ANOVA for BPR in Table 3 demonstrate the signif-
icance of quadratic model (F > 4 and P value <0.0001). Fig. 4
shows the actual versus predicted plot for BPR. A reasonable
agreement between R2 = 0.9787 and adj. R2 = 0.9575 indicated
the good consistency between predicted and actual values.
Fig. 5A depicts the effects of influent COD and HRT on BPR.
As can be seen from this figure, the amount of biogas produc-
tion increase with increasing influent COD at a constant HRT
since this increase leads to a corresponding increase in the
amount of organic matters and consequently the increased
biodegradability of these materials that bear more BPR. As
shown, as influent COD increase from 1000 to 9000 mg/L, the
maximum values of each contour moves to the higher amount
of influent COD. In other words, low concentrations of COD at
low HRTs and high concentrations of COD at high HRTs lead
to higher BPR. For COD concentration greater than 9000 mg/L,
increasing HRT caused a decrease in BPR due to the reduced
OLR. As is evident in Fig. 6, there is a linear relationship
between biogas production rates and OLR. Also, according to
Table 2, an increasing trend of BPR is observed from 0.38 to
7.68 mL/h with increasing OLR from 5.61 to 141 kg COD/m3 day
and also the highest amount of BPR was observed at the high-
est OLR that the same result is reported by Liu et al. (2010).
According to associated coefficients of responses in ANOVA
Table, COD (coefficient = 29.91) has the highest effect on BPR
in comparison to HRT and COD/N (their relative coefficients
are −25.68 and −3.75, respectively).
The impacts of influent COD and COD/N on BPR are
depicted in Fig. 5B. As shown in the figure, an increase in the
influent COD at a constant COD/N ratio results in an increase
in available organic material for microorganisms and finally
more degradability is accompanied by more BPR. In addi-
tion, rising influent COD to 5000 mg/L and decreasing COD/N
ratio from 100 to 50 lead to a drop in BPR since the amount
of added nitrogen serves as an inhibitor. In comparison, for
a higher COD concentration (>5000 mg/L), decreasing COD/N
from 150 to 50 led to increase of BPR. This trend is obvious
for higher influent COD. For example, in COD concentration
of 12,000 mg/L, decreasing COD/N from 100 to 50 caused BPR
to rise from 80 to 91.43 mL/h, whereas the variation of BPR
262 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 1 1 3 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 255–263
was about 2–3 mL/h for lower concentrations. Also, the related
coefficient of COD (29.91) and COD/N ratio (−3.75) indicate the
higher influence of COD on BPR.
3.4. Process optimization
In order to confirm the accuracy of the models, an exper-
iment was performed at the optimized condition. Based
on the results of the analysis, the experimental data were
in agreement with the prediction of the model (Table 4).
Under these optimal conditions (influent COD = 11,200 mg/l,
HRT = 27 h, COD/N = 51), the maximum COD removal and BPR
were obtained as 90% and 180 mL/h, respectively. These results
validate the accuracy of the model. Furthermore, the experi-
mental results were in close agreement with the predictive
values.
4. Conclusion
In this research, the hybrid EGSB-FB reactor was found to be
a successful biological treatment system for treating yogurt
wastewater. The effects of operating variables (influent COD,
HRT, and COD/N) as well as their interactive effects on the
efficiency of COD removal and BPR were investigated. The
results of the experiments revealed that EGSB-FB reactor has
a high capability in treating both low and high strength yogurt
wastewater. According to the fitted correlations from RSM-
CCD, the optimum models for COD removal and BPR were
the cubic model and the quadratic model, respectively. The
coefficients of operating variables revealed that COD/N ratio
(4.37) and the influent COD (2.14) respectively have the highest
impact on COD removal and BPR. The optimum conditions of
the hybrid EGSB-FB bioreactor were obtained at COD = 11,200,
HRT = 27 h, and COD/N = 51, at which the COD removal effi-
ciency and BPR were 90% and 180 mL/h respectively.
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