| description |
A Fluidized Bed Reactor (FBR) was employed to evaluate the removal and degradation of LAS from laundry wastewater without supplementary feeding. After the biomass immobilization at the support material (stage I), the reactor was fed with only laundry wastewater with a LAS concentration usually reported as process disturbing in anaerobic systems to treat LAS (22 mg/L) and sodium bicarbonate as buffering agent (stage II). Despite the low COD influent concentration (74 mg/L), the proportion of LAS and COD removal observed was high (80% and 91%, respectively). The microbiological analysis of samples taken from different regions of the FBR, in stages I and II, suggested that the composition of the laundry wastewater may also had contributed to the biomass differentiation as well as the environmental conditions in the different parts of the reactor affected the microbial composition. A remarkable proportion of genera able to degrading aromatic compounds, including LAS, were observed in the upper compartments of the reactor that was related to a facultative environment. |