Treatment of fatty solid waste from the meat industry in an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor: start-up period and establishment of the design criteria

An anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (AnSBR) was used to treat the dissolved air flotation skimmings from a cooked pork meat plant. During the start-up period, the reactor was operated in fed-batch mode for 25 days and 7 batches were treated. The SBR was inoculated with sludge taken from a reactor treating distillery vinasse. The results showed that this kind of sludge is a very good source of inoculum for digesters treating residues with a high content in fats and long-chain fatty acids because it was able to adapt very rapidly to the new substrate and, from the second batch on, the sludge was already able to metabolize the fatty residue at quite high rates. The AnSBR was then operated with 5 batches per week for 110 days and the quantity of VS added per batch was regularly increased until the maximum treatment capacity of the reactor (i.e. maximum loading rate) was reached. The maximum organic loading rates were found to be 0.16 g VS/g VSS d, or 0.224 g VS/g VSS.batch when the reactor is fed 5 times a week. The biodegradability of the skimmings was very high, with more than 97% of TS removal, and the methane production was 880±90 mL of methane/g of VS_added.