Author : Rajesh Kumar Lohchab and Snehlata

Pharmaceutical waste water contain a variety of organic and inorganic constituents including spent solvents, catalysts, additives, reactants and small amounts of intermediates and products, and may therefore be high in chemical oxygen demand. The present study has been conducted to evaluate the efficiency of UASB reactor for the treatment of pharmaceutical waste water in terms of COD reduction under different feed concentration/ organic loading rate (OLR) and hydraulic retention time (HRT). Performance of a lab-scale up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor, treating pharmaceutical wastewater, was evaluated under different operating conditions. Reactor was run in batch mode. After 10 weeks about 80% reduction in COD was observed. This shows that the reactor was properly acclimatized. The reactor was operated in 3 phases with different OLR and HRT. The UASB reactor was fed with different concentration of pharmaceutical effluent i.e. 10% of waste water at HRT of 24 hours and 20 hours and 50% of waste water at HRT of 20 hours. This study shows COD reduction of 97 % , 91 % and 89 % in phase I, II and III respectively. Other parameters were also reduced in all three phases. This regular reduction reveals the proper working of the UASB reactor.

Keywords:UASB reactor, hydraulic retention time (HRT), organic loading rate (OLR), pharmaceutical waste.

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.3,No.5(Dec- 2013)