assesment of kinetic parameters for thermophilic anaerobic contact reactor treating food-processing wastewater

a thermophilic anaerobic contact reactor for the treatment of potato-processing wastewaterswas designed as a continuous-flow, completely-mixed homogeneous system. the reactor was operated at ten different organic loading rates ranging from 0.84 g cod/l·d to 7.00 g cod/l·d for a duration of approximately 250 days. the fundamental way to maintain optimum operating conditions of anaerobic digestion systems is to have a well acquaintance with the dynamic behaviours of the process. for this purpose, different types of kinetic models were used in this study, namely the substrate balance, the maximum / specific substrate utilization rate and the methane production rate models. the experimental data obtained indicated that the models used were all applicable for the description of bio-kinetic behaviour of the thermophilic anaerobic contact reactor.