A SIMPLE BUT EFFICIENT HIGH PERFORMANCE ANAEROBIC DIGESTER SYSTEM

A new and radically different anaerobic digester called the BioTerminator has been developed using plug flow hydraulics that achieves remarkable and unprecedented solids destruction efficiencies. It is designed to digest biological solids from wastewater treatment plants and treat high-strength organic wastewaters from industrial operations. The recently introduced commercial version of this digester is available in a capacity of about 10,000 gallons/day solids treatment capacity, which will handle solids produced from a 1–2 million gallons per day (1–2 MGD) wastewater treatment plant. These facilities commonly employ aerobic digestion for solids treatment because (1) the capital cost and complexity of conventional anaerobic digesters is typically cost-prohibitive, and (2) these smaller facilities typically produce only secondary solids, which are typically not digested anaerobically without primary solids due to the presence of biopolymers that makes digestion more difficult and also due to the propensity for waste activated sludge to cause foaming. The BioTerminator plug flow anaerobic digester, however, has demonstrated the ability to digest pure secondary sludges easily. This paper describes the digestion process in the BioTerminator reactor and presents results of hydraulic tests demonstrating the plug flow characteristics.