Development of Technology for the Use of the UASB Reactor in Domestic Sewage Treatment

The lack of a simple and economic option for the treatment of sewage created the need to develop and make the UASB reactor adequate for low strength wastes. Thus a UASB reactor with 106 l capacity was built, which was specially designed for sewage treatment. Several treatability tests were conducted with raw and settled domestic sewage, with only A hours of hydraulic retention time. This proved the reactor9s technical feasibility in treating raw sewage at ambient temperature in Sao Paulo. Based on these experiments, the reactor was scaled up to 120 m 3 and built for the treatment of raw sewage at ambient temperature. The operation is in its initial phase, and good COD removals are already being observed, although steady state has not been achieved yet. Since the cost of the system was extremely low, it is a feasible option to be applied in this country.