Modified Anaerobic Serum Bottle Testing Procedures for Industrial Wastewaters L
Abstract Serum bottle bioassay techniques are batch procedures which provide a cost efficient alternative to continuous flow studies for determining anaerobic treatability characteristics of an industrial wastewater. In addition, the toxic effect of the wastewater on the anaerobic microorganisms is easily assessed in a relatively short period of time. As part of a study to screen the anaerobic treatability characteristics of a large number of industrial wastewaters, additional research was carried out to modify the original serum bottle procedures for routine use. Several experiments were completed in which the relative proportions of inoculum, nutrient medium, and wastewater were varied. This permitted assay conditions to be optimized to prevent nutrient deficiencies and excessive lags in inoculum activity, while providing for the testing of a wide range of wastewater concentrations. The effect of changing the total assay volume on the requirement for monitoring biogas accumulation and composition was also investigated.