Anaerobic treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater under mesophilic and thermophilic conditions

Two upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors with different operating temperatures, mesophilic (35 ± 1 ºC) and thermophilic (54 ± 1 ºC) were used to study the treatment of a non-penicillin based product factory wastewater. Seed sludge for the reactors was taken from the Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS campus’ activated sludge process based sewage treatment plant. The pharmaceutical wastewater was divided into two strengths based on COD concentrations viz., low strength (300-500 mg/L) and high strength (1700-2000 mg/L). The study was conducted for two hydraulic retention times of 3 and 5 days. The organic loading rate varied from 0.07 to 0.45 kg COD/m3.d. The highest percentage of COD removal for the mesophilic and thermophilic reactors was 95% and 93% respectively. NH3-N and phosphorus concentrations of the wastewater increased after anaerobic treatment.