Assessment of brewery wastewater treatment by an attached growth bioreactor

Craft beer is a rapidly growing market globally, placing an increased burden on wastewater treatment plants. To avoid discharge fees, new technology is required to make the on-site treatment of brewery wastewater affordable. This study assessed the application of a novel attached growth bioreactor (AGBR) to treat brewery wastewater to a discharge target (1,500 mg sCOD/L). Specifically, the impacts of the single-pass residence time (HRTsingle-pass), organic loading and media height were investigated. A HRTsingle-pass of 67 min demonstrated the shortest required time to meet the discharge target and the lowest final effluent concentration after 120 hr treatment time. Long HRTsingle-pass demonstrated slower biomass development, while smaller HRTsingle-pass caused an earlier rise in dissolved oxygen (DO) which hindered organic removal by heterotrophic bacteria. The sCOD removal rate increased with loading rates, however plateaued at 65 g sCOD/m2/day for loading rates above 300 g sCOD/m2/day. The media became flooded with biomass for feed strengths above 6.0 g sCOD/L. Greater media height provided additional surface area for biomass development, but marginally decreased the sCOD removal rate (g/m2/day) due to an earlier introduction of DO. Power consumption and footprint considerations found the greater media height to be the preferred choice for breweries.