A Study on Granulation Process inside a UASB Reactor

Advanced treatment of wastewater using anaerobic reactors has been versatile due to their simplicity of operation, minimum maintenance and high performance efficiency. The Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor is one of the best performing models having high retention record of viable microbial mass capable of degrading a wide range of organics. The success of this method largely depends on the development of compacted pellets (granules) owing to a complex but not well understood phenomenon of granulation. The theories of granulation proposed by several researchers have been reviewed in this study and an attempt has been made to propose a simplified theory analogous to crystallization. The hypotheses of this study were successfully verified with the experimental data to determine the growth rate of granules inside the reactor.