Remediation of sedimented fiber originating from pulp and paper industry: Laboratory scale anaerobic reactor studies and ideas of scaling up

Anaerobic treatment of sedimented fibers collected from bottom of a bay that had been receiving pulp and paper mill wastewater for about 70 years were studied for the first time in semi-continuously fed continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTR). Anaerobic treatment of the fiber sediment was shown to be feasible, without dilution and with nitrogen and buffer supplement, at organic loading rates (OLR) up to 2.5 kg VS/m³d and hydraulic retention times (HRT) of 60 d resulting in methane yields of 201 ± 18 L CH₄/kg VS. Co-digestion of sedimented fiber with sewage sludge at an OLR of 1.5 kg VS/m³d and HRT of 20 d resulted in a methane production of 246 ± 10 L CH₄/kg VS. The techno-economic feasibility of mono and co-digestion process together with several case dependent factors such as maximum operable OLR, digestate utilization needs to be evaluated before making further conclusions for larger scale remediation applications.