Performance Evaluation of Pilot-scale Hybrid Anaerobic Baffled Reactor (HABR) to Process Dyeing Wastewater Based on Grey Relational Analysis

A pilot-scale six-compartment hybrid anaerobic baffled reactor (HABR) with effective volume of 18 m3 was used to treat dyeing wastewater. The HABR system was able to treat the wastewater efficiently after FeSO4 pretreatment, as indicated by removal efficiencies of 33.7% for chemical oxygen demand (COD), 39.9% for suspended solid (SS), and 22.5% for sulfate (SO42−) during steadily operational period. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) showed that the concentrations of alkanes, amides, organic acids, ketones, phenols, and esters were much lower in the effluent than those in the influent; many high-molecular-weight compounds such as cyclanes, quinolines, and phenols were successfully transformed to low-molecular-weight ones. As illustrated from the results of generalized grey relational analysis (GGRA), COD removal efficiency was more closely associated with flow rate, organic loading rate (OLR), water temperature, and influent SS among the whole selected possible factors. Based on the overall treating effectiveness and the GGRA study, the optimized operation strategy of the dyeing wastewater treatment by HABR was obtained as the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 12 h for steady-state operation with an up-flow velocity of 1.7 m/h as well as OLR of 1.5–2.0 kg COD/(m3·d).