• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.993-997
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• 2007

The upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor can be effective for treating simple organic compounds containing high concentration of ammonia nitrogen. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency was about 80% at ammonia nitrogen concentration up to 6,000 mg-N/L. This result also showed that it would be possible to treat propionate effectively at free ammonia nitrogen concentration up to 724 mg-N/L if sufficient time was allowed for adaptation. However the specific methanogenic activity (SMA) of granule was lower than that of granule in the reactor with lower ammonia nitrogen concentration. At 8,000 mg-N/L, the inhibition of high ammonia concentration was observed with evidence of increase of the volatile suspended solids (VSS) concentration in the effluent. It might be ascribed to the decrease in the content of extracellular polymer (ECP), which resulted to the sloughing off of obligated proton-reducing acetogens and heterogenotrophic methanogens from the exterior of granular sludge. This caused a great portion of the finely sludge to be easily washed out. Therefore, failure to maintain the balance between these two groups of microorganism cause accumulation of the hydrogen partial pressure in the reactor, which could have inhibited the growth of acetate utilizing methanogens.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.513-524
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• 1996

Laboratory investigation was conducted to evaluat the mixing effects on organic removal efficiency to treat low-strength synthetic wastewater using modified anaerobic - filter reactor combining anaerobic filter and upflow anaerobic sludge blanket. Using the modified process the low-strength wastewater like municipal sewage could be treated with 85% T-COD removal efficiency at hydraulic retention time of 6 hours. At the constant organic loading of 0.5 kg COD/m 3-day, the organic removal efficiency and effluent COD concentration are increased as influent COD concentration increased from 125 mg/l to 500 mg/l. Mixing effects on organic removal efficiency are evident and optimum mixing speed is found as 50RPM. Placing the granular sludge and media on which slime layer was pre-formed into the reactor seemed to be very effective In achieving short start-up period. Therefore, the steady state was achived after 4 weeks and 1 week based on T-COD and S-COD, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.32 no.2 s.89
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• pp.179-185
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• 2006

Effect of organic loading rate on UASB performance was evaluated under the renditions of some surface area/reactor volume ratio and different reactor diameter. At the low leading rate of 0.4 kg $COD/m^3{\cdot}d$, reactor performance was not affected by reactor diameter. At the organic loading rate of 6 kg $COD/m^3{\cdot}d$, however, volatile acid accumulation and low COD removal efficiency is observed in reactor having 6.4 cm diameter, while volatile acid is not accumulated at all and high COD removal efficiency is observed in reactor having 3 cm diameter. Such a difference of reactor performance depending on reactor diameter can be explained that sludge bed can be fluidized by evolved gas bubble in narrow reactor, while sludge bed ran not be fluidized by evolved gas bubble only in wide reactor. At a high organic loading rate of 20 kg $COD/m^3{\cdot}d$, it can be judged that there is no relation between reactor configuration and reactor performance because all reactors showed very low COD removal efficiencies regardless of reactor diameter. Narrow and tall type reactor is favorable condition for making sludge bed fluidization at a constant surface area/reactor volume ratio. Thus, it can be judged that reactor configuration and sludge bed fluidization have great influence to reactor performance.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.151-160
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• 2006

Anaerobic treatment of landfill leachate was studied to investigate the behaviors of pollutant and the characteristics of microorganism for 10 months. The upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor achieved about 90% chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal at organic loading rates(OLR) up to $20kgCOD/m^3.d$. At higher OLR ($8-20kgCOD/m^3.d$), the propionate concentration increased, indicating that converting propionate to acetate was the rate-limiting step. Nevertheless, increase in the precipitate inside and on the surface of granules as well as on the wall of the reactor resulted in operational problems. The main inorganic precipitate in the granule was calcium compound. Although specific methanogenic activity (SMA) was not affected seriously in this study, metals had to be removed prior to anaerobic treatment so as to be free from the excessive inorganic accumulation that resulted in operational problems.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.345-351
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• 2004

We investigated the anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) reaction in a lab-stale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. Our aim was to detect and enrich the organisms responsible for the anammox reaction using a synthetic medium that contained low concentrations of substrates (ammonium and nitrite). The reactor was inoculated with granular sludge collected from a full-scale anaerobic digestor used for treating brewery wastewater The experiment was performed during 260 days under conditions of constant ammonium concentration ($50\;mg\;NH_4^+-N/L$) and different nitrite concentrations ($50{\~}150\;mg\;NO_2-N/L$). After 200 days, anammox activity was observed in the system. The microorganisms involved in this anammox reaction were identified as Candidatus B. Anammoxidans and K. Stuttgartiensis using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH ) method.

• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.199-204
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• 2006

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the development of the anammox process by the use of granular sludge selected from a digestion reactor as a potential seed source in a lab-scale UASB (upflow anaerobic sludge blanket) reactor system. The reactor was operated for approximately 11 months and was fed by synthetic wastewater. After 200 days of feeding with $NH_4^+\;and\;NO_2^-$ as the main substrates, the biomass showed steady signs of ammonium consumption, resulting in over 60% of ammonium nitrogen removal. This report aims to present the results and to more closely examine what occurs after the onset of anammox activity, while the previous work described the start-up experiment and the presence of anammox bacteria in the enriched community using the fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique. By the last month of operation, the consumed $NO_2^--N/NH_4^+-N$ ratio in the UASB reactor was close to 1.32, the stoichiometric ratio of the anammox reaction. The obtained results from the influent-shutdown test suggested that nitrite concentration would be one key parameter that promotes the anammox reaction during the start-up enrichment of anammox bacteria from granular sludge. During the study period, the sludge color gradually changed from black to red-brownish.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.75-82
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• 2008

Two UASB reactors were operated to investigate the effect of high concentration of sulfate on anaerobic digestion of propionate using an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor. An organic loading rate of $1.2kg\;COD/m^3{\cdot}d$ and a hydraulic retention time of 1.6 d were maintained during this study. In the absence of sulfate, the UASB reactor achieved about 95% removal of chemical oxygen demand whereas in the presence of $2,000\;SO_4^{2-}mg/L$, the COD removal rate decreased to 83% due probably to the inhibition of dissolved sulfide inhibition. Interactions between the methane producing bacteria (MPB) and sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) were measured to investigate the competition between MPB and SRB. The MPB consumed average 58% of the available electron donors at $COD/SO_4^{2-}$ ratio of 1. Propionate was consumed mainly by SRB, converting sulfate into sulfide and suppressing the methane production. The specific methanogenic activity (SMA) using acetate and propionate increased as microorganism acclimated to the substrate.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.91-97
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• 2008

The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of the addition of granular activated carbon (GAC) and granular sludge on the performance of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors for treating leachate. For the control reactor, sludge obtained from an anaerobic digester was used as a seed material. On the other hand, GAC and granular sludge were incorporated with the seed sludge in the GAC reactor and the Granule reactor, respectively. The shortest acclimation period was observed in the Granule reactor. The GAC reactor also gave comparable performance to the Granule reactor at the beginning of operation. However, as the adsorptive capacity of GAC was exhausted, the effluent COD concentration increased gradually. Once the systems were stabilized, the GAC reactor showed slightly better results than the other two reactors in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. COD removal in all reactors was more than 90% at hydraulic retention time of 1.0 day. Furthermore, GAC reactor showed little variation in COD removal rate and remained at 95% with organic loading rate (OLR) of 4.0 to $8.2kg\;COD/m^3.d$. Initial operating period was reduced by the addition of granular sludge, while the treatment efficiency was enhanced by the addition of GAC.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.47-56
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• 1998

Effects of sulfate on the anaerobic substrate utilization were evaluated using UASB (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket) reactor. Effect of sulfate on the organic removal rate was dependent on the relative amount of microorganisms in the reactor, the operational condition, and the characteristics of sludge. When the sulfate shock was applied to 0.0 - 3.0g SO$_{4}$$^{2-}$/d, more than 95% of COD removal efficiency was achieved. Therefore, if F/M ratio was kept to low sufficiently with recirculation, it is shown that operation of the reactor was not affected significantly, though sulfate shock load was doubled compared to the normal operation. Provided that it is shocked by high strength of sulfate or temporary shock load is applied frequently the efficiency of reactor may be disadvantageous as well as the wash-out of sludge will be increased by decreasing the size to the accumulated frequency of granular sludge and the size with maximum frequency.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.201-214
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• 1995

Design approach of upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket(UASB) process based on the biological kinetic parameters are known to be very difficult since the characteristics of the granular slut비e depends on the type of wastewater and size distribution of the granular sludge also depends on the upflow velocity in the UASB reactors. Furthermore, industrial wastewater containing toxic substances has been treated by UASB process without the clear knowledge of toxic effects on the granular slut형e. Hence, the present research was aimed on the intensive evaluation of biological kinetic parameters of the granular sludge in UASB reactor with and without toxic substance of 2, 4-dichlorophenol in order to present the basic design measures for UASB process design. The results could be summarized as follows. The biological kinetic parameters(k and Ks) considerably varied with the granular size of the sludge. Generally, 연e k and ks values of the granular sludge increased with the particle size of the granule. The biological kinetic parameters(k and Ks) of the granular sludge obtained from batch test were not applicable to design purpose of UASB process due to substrate diffusional limitation into the granular sludge in the completely mixed UASB reactors. The toxic effects on k and Ks greatly varied with the granular sixte. And as the toxicant concentration increased, the k value decreased while the Ks value increased. Inhibition constant(hi) for k with the toxicant of 2, 4-dichlorophenol varied from 0.5 to 2.3 depending on the granular sizes while the inhibition constant(Ki) for Ks varied from 20.7 to 80.1, showing the mixed inhibition.