Abstract:
The aim of this study was to apply anaerobic filter to treat low strength wastewater, by comparing the performances of filled-up media anaerobic filter to half-filled suspended media one. The expe¬riments were applied to treat synthetic waste which had fixed COD concentration to 300 mg/1 and treated under four hydraulic retention times, ie. 3, 6, 9 and 12 hours at organic loadings of 1.85, 0.62, 0.93 and 0.46 kg COD/m3/day respectively. From this research, it revealed that the anaerobic filter was a promising candidate for treatment of low strength wastewater. Furthermore this experiment showed that the performances of the half-filled filter were over than the filled-up one. It could be concluded from the experimental results that the COD removal efficiencies were around 50-92% at retention times of 3 to 12 hours. The maximum efficiency of COD removed was at 12 hours hydraulic retention time and the methane production was 0.096 1/gm - COD removed. Gas composition are averaged of 45% nitrogen, 47%methane and 8% carbon dioxide.