A novel fast mass transfer anaerobic inner loop fluidized bed biofilm reactor for PTA wastewater treatment

In this paper, a fast mass transfer anaerobic inner loop fluidized bed biofilm reactor (ILFBBR) was developed to improve purified terephthalic acid (PTA) wastewater treatment. The emphasis of this study was on the start-up mode of the anaerobic ILFBBR, the hydraulic loadings and the operation stability. The biological morphology of the anaerobic biofilm in the reactors was also analyzed. The anaerobic column could operate successfully for 46 days due to the pre-aerating process. The anaerobic column had the capacity to resist shock loadings and maintained a high stable chemical oxygen demand (COD) and terephthalic acid removal rates at a hydraulic retention time of 5–10 h, even under conditions of organic volumetric loadings as high as 28.8 kg COD·m−3.d−1. The scanning electron microscope analysis of the anaerobic carrier demonstrated that clusters of prokaryotes grew inside of pores and that the filaments generated by pre-aeration contributed to the anaerobic biofilm formation and stability.