MODIFICACIÓN DEL DISEÑO DE UN REACTOR ANAEROBIO DE FLUJO ASCENDENTE DE LECHO GRANULAR PARA MEJORAR EL CONTACTO SUSTRATO – BIOMASA

Abstract

This thesis entitled "Changing the design of a reactor upflow anaerobic granular bed to improve the contact substrate - biomass," was conducted with the aim of increasing the contact time between substrate and biomass, which is way to improve the performance of a treatment plant by the experimental design of a circular baffle system to control the movement of the granules that make up the sludge bed by altering experimentally in a small hydraulic model an anaerobic reactor and whose dimensions were determined by G. Lettinga and L. W. Hulshoff and following the conditions of similarity of Reynolds, were built two identical reactor models in 1:10 scale acrylic works with a volume of 11.7 liters, area 25 cm2 and 52 cm height. for observing what happens inside the system and to compare the operation of the reactor before and after the changes, the analysis of granular sludge taken from an anaerobic treatment plant type to be used in the reactor as inoculum, was detected large amount of foreign material which causes the formation of flow lines in the bed of mud in the effect of reducing the contact between the substrate and biomass so that by leveraging these power lines and lead them through the lower circular baffles were captured and pass into the upper deflector precipitating biomass thus achieving smaller granules that are dragged to the top creating a pressure point that contributes to the formation of larger grains to improve the contact between the substrate and biomass, which optimize bioreactor performance.