Toxicity of trivalent chromium in the anaerobic digestion process

U. Alkan*, G. K. Anderson, O. Ince

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The toxicity of trivalent chromium to an anaerobic digestion system was studied using completely mixed anaerobic digesters. One of the digesters was operated as a control, one was dosed in a stepwise manner with increasing concentrations of chromium, allowing acclimatisation of the bacterial population and the other two digesters were used for shock injections of chromium but with no acclimatisation. The results have shown that a total concentration of 1140 mgl-1 trivalent chromium was toxic to anaerobic digestion process when injected in stepwise manner. On the other hand, a toxic effect of the metal was observed at 500 mgl-1 concentration when shock injection was applied, resulting in the process failure. However, a shock injection of 400 mgl-1 of trivalent chromium only caused a short term inhibition of the process with recovery taking place within a week.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)731-741
Number of pages11
JournalWater Research
Volume30
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 1996

Funding

Acknowledgements--The authors would like to thank the Environmental Engineering Division of the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne for their support and the laboratory facilities provided for the project. The author Ufuk Alkan would like to express his gratitude to the Turkish Ministry of Education for the financial support. Orhan Ince would also like to acknowledge Istanbul Technical University, Department of Environmental Engineering for their full support.

FundersFunder number
Turkish Ministry of Education

    Keywords

    • Acclimatisation
    • Anaerobic digestion
    • Heavy metals
    • Shock injection
    • Step injection
    • Toxicity
    • Toxicity levels
    • Trivalent chromium

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