Anaerobic baffled reactor for treatment of swine wastewater

Water and soil pollution caused by the waste from the swine production causes severe environmental impacts in producing areas. An efficient alternative to reduce these impacts can be the use of high-rate anaerobic reactors. In this work, it was evaluated the effect of the swine wastewater with total suspended solids concentrations around 6.000 mg.L-1 in the anaerobic baffled reactor with three compartments. The volume of the first compartment was 210 L and of the second and third ones of 160 L. The anaerobic baffled reactor was submitted at hydraulic detention times of 56, 28 and 18 hours and to organic load rates of 5.0 to 10.1 g total COD (L.d)(-1). The highest total COD removals, of 42 to 68%, and volumetric methane productions, of 0.261 to 0.454 L CH4 (L reactor d)(-1), occurred in the second compartment.