The Route of Anaerobic Waste (Water) Treatment toward Global Acceptance

Although the feasibility of anaerobic wastewater treatment (AnWT) has been successfully demonstrated over 100 years ago, its development and implementation had been hampered for decades until the re-introduction of the anaerobic filter process in the 1960s and the technological breakthrough in the 1970s of the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) pprocess. This has led to the further developments of a number of modern high-rate AnWT systems, such as expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) reactor, and anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR), for numerous types of industrial wastewaters. Furthermore, UASB reactor systems have been successfully applied for the treatment of raw domestic sewage, followed by an aerobic polishing post-treatment, if needed; the enormous potentials of the innovative micro-aerobic post-treatment will soon be demonstrated at full scale. Moreover, based on improved understanding of these processes, e.g., in the microbiology, biochemistry, the immobilization of required organisms and consortia, and reactor and process technology, and in control and steering, undoubtedly substantial further progress in the applicability of these anaerobic systems will be achieved in near future. These treatment systems, greatly based on the Natural Biological Mineralization route (NBM), are going to act as a crowbar to force Environmental Protection toward a significantly more sustainable tackle. They enable closing of water and substance loops, viz. valorization of pollutants, reuse of treated water, and will stimulate minimization of wasting of clean water in wastewater collection and transport. Along with the implementation of these systems a major step will be made toward more sustainability in society.