Model development and full scale validation for anaerobic treatment of protein and fat based wastewater

Abstract

Presented is a kinetic model simulating the biodegradation of pig abattoir (slaughterhouse) wastewater in a full scale anaerobic treatment plant. High rate anaerobic treatment of these wastes is often complicated by the presence of particulates and fats. The model developed by Costello et al. (1991) for the degradation of soluble carbohydrates and modified by Ramsay et al. (1994) for soluble proteins is further expanded to simulate the solublisation of particles and the biological degradation of fats. This approached proved well suited to describe the full breakdown of the complex component mixture found in such a wastewater. The model is tuned using one dynamic experimental run and is validated against on two different experimental runs. Agreement between simulation and experimental results is very good on all sets of data. The importance of critical outputs such as gas production and agreement between experimental and simulation results are discussed. It is concluded that the model should be a useful tool for optimal reactor design and operation when encountering difficult wastewaters.