Full scale UASB reactor performance in the brewery industry.

In this paper the 7 year experience of the Oriental Breweries, located in Kumi, Korea utilizing a full-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor for the anaerobic pretreatment of brewery wastewater is presented. The anaerobic pretreatment system selected has successfully achieved the desired treatment efficiency for the brewery wastewater during that period and it has also continued operation even with low wastewater concentrations (average CODcr 1,400 mg l-1) and lower flow rates than specified by the design parameters. The CODcr removal of the UASB reactor averaged over 80% throughout the entire period, incurring normal running expenses of only $0.20-0.31 m-3 of treated water. In addition a further economical feature of the process was the utilization of the gas digester production as the municipal gas source, reducing total operating expenses around 30 to 45% and costing the plant only $0.1 m-3. Maintenance of good granule production, which is always a key issue in operating UASB systems, was not possible by this installation, however, so frequent expensive reseeding of the reactor was often necessary due to biomass washout. The full scale and lab scale research revealed that underloading can be as detrimental as overloading, due to excessively long retention time in the UASB system for the overall operating period and to excessive pre-acidification and/or incorrect reactor configuration of the completely mixed type. To enhance the sludge granulation, therefore, the installation of a pre-acidification reactor in the UASB system treating easily biodegradable substrates such as brewery wastewater is not necessary because adequate pre-acidification can occur in the equalization tank.