Developments of New Anaerobic Treatment Technology in France

In France, treatment of industrial effluents by anaerobic treatment has been well established especially in the agricultural and food industries. With the increasing cost of green electricity, we see an increase of anaerobic reactors constructions for farm and municipal solid wastes. Here we report five developments currently underway. The first is a modified moving bed process,called “anaerobic moving bed biofilm reactor” (AMBBR), in which a carrier is moving inside the reactor. It is easy to manage, and we can reach an organic load of 24 kg-COD·m⁻³·d⁻¹. The second technology, called “PROVEO”, is for wastewater treatment. The process uses support media for trapping microbial flocs and for biofilm growth. The third technology is combining an anaerobic filter with ultrafiltration (UF) membranes that have been applied to the treatment of dairy wastewater. The treated wastewater is free of suspended solids and the organic load reaches 10 kg-COD·m⁻³·d⁻¹. The fourth technology, named ERGENIUM, is about the treatment of solid wastes in a two-stage process, i.e., acidogenesis followed by methanogenesis. The leachate from the first reactor is separated from the solid fraction and further treated in an anaerobic filter. The fifth technology development is on the pH control of the anaerobic reactor so that the biogas may have a steady methane concentration.