Desempenho de um reator UASB em escala piloto para o tratamento de chorume de resíduos sólidos urbanos

The present work had the objective to start-up a 9.5 L UASB reactor to treat leachate from a 700 L anaerobic semi-solid phase reactor (RSO) treating municipal organic solid wastes. The UASB reactor was inoculated with an anaerobic granular sludge coming from a brewery company. The leachate used in the first stage of the process (stage of acclimatization of the microorganisms) was collected in a sanitary landfill. In the second stage of the process the UASB was fed with the RSO leachate and all UASB effluent was recycled to the RSO reactor. The leachate COD fed in the UASB reactor varied from 2.800 to 38,670 mg O2/L and it was operated in temperature range of 25 to 27°C. The UASB reactor operation was relatively stable achieving COD removal above 75% and loading rates reaching 12.60 kg COD/m3.d, at HRT of 2.11 days. These results has shown the aplicability of the UASB reactor to treat such residue with good performance.
Palavras chave: UASB, Leachate, Municipal Solid Wastes