International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—The optimum mixing pattern in anaerobic reactors is a subject of much debate. Under plug flow conditions incoming substrate remains in the reactor for one retention time, allowing maximum time for conversion. However, the high substrate concentrations resulting from lack of dispersion may inhibit bacterial activity. On the other hand, excessive dispersion may result in short -circuiting of substrate and would not be ideal for granule formation in some anaerobic reactor configurations. Excessive substrate feeding during start-up can lead to the accumulation of volatile fatty acids and a concomitant decrease in pH in anaerobic baffled reactors because of their plug flow characteristics. In addition, plug flow reactors fed with high strength wastewater are more likely to expose sensitive bacteria to toxic levels of inorganic and organic compounds at inlet area. To overcome these difficulties, substrate feeding pattern to the reactor could be manipulated. Such a configuration, the split fed anaerobic baffled reactor (SFABR), has been developed in the Environmental Engineering Laboratories of Newcastle University in 2001. During the development of this reactor, tracer study was used to decide split ratio of the reactor. As a result of the tracer study, it was concluded that a split ratio of 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, and 0.1 should be ideal for the SFABR.

Index Terms—Anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR), mixing, split fed anaerobic baffled reactor (SFABR), tracer study.

S. Uyanik is with the Harran University, Turkey (e-mail: suyanik@harran.edu.tr).

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Cite: S. Uyanik, "A Tracer Study for the Improvement of Hydrodynamic Properties of Anaerobic Baffled Reactors (ABRs)," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 9, no. 9, pp. 274-277, 2018.