Degradation of 3-Nitrophenol with Sodium Acetate as Co-substrate in an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactor

The effects on degrading 3-nitrophenol (3-NP) with sodium acetate as co-substrate under the conditions of laboratory-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor was investigated at an operating temperature of 35 +/- 1 degrees C in this study. The results showed that the optimum influent 3-NP concentration was 71.6mg/L when keeping influent COD concentration for 2500 mg/L and hydraulic retention time (HRT) for 30 h. At the stage of reducing influent COD concentration, all of the 3-NP removal rates were more than 95%; while the conversion rate of 3-aminophenol (3-AP) decreased from 61.4% to 0.2%. Meanwhile, the reduction of HRT also had significantly effects on the treatment effect of 3-NP. With the decreases of HRT, COD removal dropped to 49.7% from 82.7%.