Treatment of Waste Water at the El Aguila Brewery (Madrid, Spain). Methanization in Fluidized Bed Reactors

After 2 years of operation in the waste water treatment plant of the El Aguila brewery, the performance of the ANAFLUX fluidized bed reactors could be examined. For the treatment of the brewery effluent, an acidification tank is required upstream of the reactors so that high COD loadings (up to 60 Kg COD/m³/day) could be applied to the fluidized beds for hydraulic retention times of 2 hours. The wide variations in the pollutant load do not have any irreparable effects on the efficiency of the purification process. Efficiency of the acidification and methanization line reaches 80% of soluble COD and 72% of total COD. An additional aerobic finishing treatment further increases the levels of efficiency (less than 50 mg/l COD at the plant outlet).