title: Evaluation of substrate removal kinetics for UASB reactors treating chlorinated ethanes.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Lack of focus on the treatment of wastewaters bearing potentially hazardous pollutants like 1,1,2 trichloroethane and 1,1,2,2 tetrachloroethane in anaerobic reactors has provided an impetus to undertake this study. The objective of this exercise was to quantify the behavior of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors and predict their performance based on the overall organic substrate removal.
  
  
  METHODS
  The reactors (wastewater-bearing TCA (R2), and wastewater-bearing TeCA (R3)) were operated at different hydraulic retention times (HRTs), i.e., 36, 30, 24, 18, and 12 h corresponding to food-to-mass ratios varying in the range of 0.2–0.7 mg chemical oxygen demand (COD) mg−1 volatile suspended solids day−1. The process kinetics of substrate utilization was evaluated on the basis of experimental results, by applying three mathematical models namely first order, Grau second order, and Michaelis-Menten type kinetics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that the lowering of HRT below 24 h resulted in reduced COD removal efficiencies and higher effluent pollutant concentrations in the reactors. The Grau second-order model was successfully applied to obtain the substrate utilization kinetics with high value of R 2 (>0.95). The Grau second-order substrate removal constant (K 2) was calculated as 1.12 and 7.53 day−1 for reactors R2 and R3, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrated the suitability of Grau second-order kinetic model over other models, for predicting the performance of reactors R2 and R3, in treating wastewaters containing chlorinated ethanes under different organic and hydraulic loading conditions.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India. debolina.basu@gmail.com
authors.forename: Debolina
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Basu
authors.forename: Shyam R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Asolekar
mesh_terms: D004980:Ethane / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D005018:Ethyl Chloride / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D007700:Kinetics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D014240:Trichloroethanes / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated; D014240:Trichloroethanes; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; C015530:1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane; C024567:1,1,2-trichloroethane; D005018:Ethyl Chloride; D004980:Ethane