earticle

영어

In recent, paradigm for industrial wastewater treatment has been gradually shifting from a simple pollution control technology to energy- and resource-integrated one. Along with rapid technological advances in various types of anaerobic wastewater treatment processes, high-strength organic wastewater generated from industry is now valued as an alternative resource for energy production. In this case study, high-rate anaerobic treatment of PTA (purified terephthalic acid) wastewater, which accompanies methane biogas production, was intensively reviewed based on our own results from varied aspects encompassing microbiology, process design and performance, and systems engineering approaches as well. Complex anaerobic biodegradation mechanisms of the syntrophic mixed culture system involved in the PTA wastewater treatment were summarized first and a two-stage UASB process was proposed as an efficient process configuration to cope with these complex biodegradation mechanisms. The performance of the two-stage UASB process was also discussed especially focusing on its relationship to the microbial distribution within the granules at each stage. As for the systems engineering approaches, several mathematical modeling results for a full-scale anaerobic filter process treating real PTA wastewater were briefly highlighted regarding their potential as an efficient process monitoring tool. This review study would be able to provide some meaningful guidelines for the researchers and engineers who aim to develop an anaerobic wastewater treatment process for the purpose of energy recovery from their own target wastewaters.