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Table 2. Emissions from firing of fuels

Firewood Rice-husk Corncob

Min-max Average Min-max Average Min-max Average

CO (ppm) 15-1739 770 12-3167 270 477-4330 2570

CO2 (%) 4.3-5.5 4.9 3.5-11.1 5.6 1.2-6.4 3.5

O2 (%) 14.7-16.1 15.4 8.4-16.7 14.5 13.7-19.6 17.0

Acknowledgements
Financial support from the Fund for Energy Conservation Promotion, Energy Policy and
Planning Office, Ministry of Energy, Thailand, is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would
also like to express thanks to the “Energy Conservation in Tobacco Curing” research team
for its technical and secretarial assistance.
References
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Tantakitti, C., and Thavornun, S., 2000. “Energy conservation in tobacco curing”, Asian
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Tippayawong, N., Tantakitti, C., and Thavornun, S., 2004. “Energy- and emission-based
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agricultural residues”, Progress in Energy and Combustion Sciences, 26, pp. 1-27.

Biofuel production from
tapioca starch industry
wastewater using a hybrid
anaerobic reactor
A. Kamaraj
Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute, Aduthurai-612 101,
Tamil Nadu, India
E-mail: akamaraj@rediffmail.com
N.O. Gopal, P. Venkatachalam, and A. Sampathrajan
Department of Bio Energy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural Uni-
versity, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, India
1. Introduction
Starch wastewater is a common type of wastewater in the
food industry and tapioca is one of the most important
raw materials for starch preparation. The sago (tapioca)
industry in India is basically seasonal in nature, operating
for only six months of the year from September to Feb-
ruary. During starch preparation from tapioca, large quan-
tities of wastewater are generated. The average water
requirement was estimated to be in the range of 30-40 m3
per tonne (t) of product or 5-7 m3/t of tuber. The waste-
water mainly comes from washing roots and separation
of free starch from fibrous pulp [Daratana et al., 1991;
Trim et al., 1993; Mulyanto and Titiresmi, 2000]
Biofuel production from tapioca starch wastewater has
been investigated to some degree using conventional com-
pletely mixed reactors [Daratana et al., 1991; Trim et al.,
1993; Mulyanto and Titiresmi, 2000]. Generally, the con-
ventional systems require long hydraulic retention times
(HRTs) and in return large area requirements. In recent
years the anaerobic wastewater treatment technology has
been markedly improved by the development of the up-
flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) concept [Lettinga
et al., 1980; Torkian et al., 2003; Uemura and Harada,
1995; Shigeki and Hideki, 2000; Delia, 2001; Castro-Gon-
zalez et al., 2001] and its worldwide application.
One of the many types of high-rate anaerobic reactors
presently attracting growing interest is the anaerobic fixed
film (AFF) reactor [Young and Dahab, 1983; Kennedy
and Droste, 1991; Young, 1991; Elmitwalli et al., 2000;
Elmitwalli et al., 2002]. High specific area and porosity,
large pore size and rough surface of the fixed film im-
prove the performance of an AFF reactor. The numerous
advantages of AFF reactor systems and performance char-
acteristics are well documented in [Kamaraj, 2005; Lo
and Liao, 1985; Lo and Liao, 1988].
Due to relatively low densities of the UASB granules,
appropriate measures have to be taken to prevent loss of
granules in the effluent, especially at low HRT. Further-
more, in large-scale operations, suitable flow distribution
at the inlet of the reactor may be difficult to achieve and
maintain. At this juncture, introduction of high-rate reac-
tors such as AFF reactors, up-flow anaerobic sludge blan-
ket (UASB) reactors, expanded/ fluidized bed anaerobic
reactors and hybrid bioreactors have brought down the
HRTs of anaerobic digesters from 35-40 days of typical

Energy for Sustainable Development ! Volume X No. 3 ! September 2006 73

 Short articles
unstirred reactors to a few hours. This reduction in HRTs
has opened up the possibility of treating high-volume
low-strength wastewater such as tapioca wastewater.
Energy conversion of wastewater by the biomethanation
process has several advantages over other processes be-
cause of its construction, operation and maintenance
costs, low land requirement, low sludge production, ap-
plicability to most types of high organic content sub-
strates, operation at low temperature and pressure, and for
the production of biogas [Elmitwalli et al., 2002].
This paper reports the results of an investigation car-
ried out with a pilot-scale hybrid anaerobic reactor
(UASB concept coupled with AFF concept in the same
reactor) with tapioca starch industry wastewater for en-
ergy recovery.
2. Methods
2.1. Materials and energy assessment
Process- and source-wise energy use in the sago industry
was measured to estimate the energy use pattern in starch
production [Kamaraj, 2005; James and Kamaraj, 2002].
Starch production from tapioca consisted of a number of
unit operations involving human, mechanical, electrical
and thermal energy.
A pilot-scale hybrid reactor (UASB concept coupled
with AFF concept in the same reactor) was designed
[Kamaraj, 2005; Arceivala, 2000] with a total volume of
7000 l (4.15 m total height and 1.5 m internal diameter)
and liquid retaining capacity of 6725 l. The reactor was
made of reinforced cement concrete having provisions for
flow of influent and effluent, sampling ports (five) and
gas outlet. The reactor was packed with PVC corrugated
fixed film media exactly at the middle 25 % of the reactor
height. This packed media at the middle acted as the AFF
region. The bottom portion of the reactor acted as the
UASB region. The top portion of the reactor acted as the
gas-liquid separator region.
The reactor was operated in up-flow mode to mix the
medium and provided with an external heat exchanger to
heat the medium to a constant temperature (37 ± 0.5º C).
The influent feed was pumped using a variable-speed
peristaltic pump. A perforated piping system (6 mm,
8 mm and 10 mm holes at a uniform spacing of 20 mm)
was used at the bottom of the reactor to ensure homoge-
neous distribution of flow into the reactor. The reactor
effluent was collected from the top of the reactor through
overflow by means of a gas-liquid separator. The reactor
was fitted with a movable gas holder, in which gas pro-
duced was collected. Daily gas production was deter-
mined using a wet-type gas flow meter. The reactor was
constructed at Sri Amman Sago Factory (crushing capac-
ity of 100 t of tubers per day), Erode district, Tamil Nadu,
India.
2.2. Wastewater and inoculum
The wastewater for the investigation was collected from
the industry at a common tank and was initially passed
through a screen to remove foreign material. The inocu-
lum for seeding the reactor was brought from a full-scale
anaerobic lagoon, which was in operation for treatment
74 Energy for Sustainable Development
of wastewater at the industry. The sludge was initially
passed through a screen to remove foreign material.
2.3. Analytical and operational methods
The reactor influent and effluent were analyzed after each
loading, as were samples taken from inside the reactor.
The physicochemical characteristics of the wastewater
were determined using standard methods [APHA, 1992].
The reactor was initially fed with low-concentration tapi-
oca starch wastewater (diluted up to 20 times with tap
water with pH of 7.2) and inoculated with granular
sludge. Thereafter, the influent feed strength was gradu-
ally increased in steps until it was the same as that of the
collected wastewater. The daily feeding was done in semi-
continuous mode at the rate of 0.53 m/h upward velocity.
The reactor was fed with combined wastewater at differ-
ent values of HRTs (10, 7, 5, 3, 2, and 1 days) corre-
sponding to their organic loading rates (OLRs) (chemical
oxygen demand (COD) being 0.98, 1.40, 1.94, 3.22, 4.84,
and 9.71 kg/m3/day) respectively. For each HRT studied,
steady-state performance usually occurred after about
three times the HRT had passed, and it was marked by
near constant effluent pH values and COD values with
less than 5 % variation.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Energy use in the industry
Source-wise and process-wise energy inputs in sago pro-
duction processes are presented in Table 1, the units being
standardized to MJ/t for every source. The maximum in-
put to the industry was found to be from fuel-wood
(around 90 % of total energy requirement) used for roast-
ing sago. In the roasting process the wet material is trans-
formed to dry material. Next to fuel-wood, electrical
energy was used (5.53 %) for crushing, fine-screen
sieves, washing and rewashing. Electrical energy was also
used for the size reduction and separation process. Human
energy (2.86 %) was spent on all material-handling proc-
esses. Peeling, one of the laborious processes, was also
done by human energy. The least used was diesel energy
(1.67 %) for water-pumping, running the sieve shaker
(which was also run by electricity) and for polishing of
dried sago. An experiment was conducted to replace diesel
energy by biogas produced from anaerobic digestion of
tapioca starch industry wastewater using the designed hy-
brid reactor.
3.2. Characteristics of the wastewater and fixed film
reactor
The average physicochemical characteristics of tapioca
starch wastewater in different tanks are given in Table 2.
The total biological oxygen demand (BOD) and COD
were high in all and this was due to letting out of waste-
water without fine settlement of starch during the starch
separation process. The pH was highest in the primary
tank as the wastewater was generated in a short time
whereas in the tertiary tank, the pH was lowest (the water
was acidic) as it was generated from stored starch, but
the TSS (total soluble solids) was higher in the tertiary
than in the secondary tank, reversing the variation in pH.
A similar trend was reported by Hien et al. [1999].
! Volume X No. 3 ! September 2006
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Table 1. Process- and source-wise energy usage (MJ/t) in the sago industry

No. Process Human Electricity Diesel Fuel- wood Total

1 Downloading of tubers 1.05 - - - 1.05

2 Soaking to sieve shaker 1.05 - - - 1.05

3 Sieve shaker to peeling 1.05 - 10.06 - 11.11

4 Peeling 10.45 - - - 10.45

5 Peel drying, loading 0.56 - - - 0.56

6 Peeling to washing 0.53 - - - 0.53

7 Washing - 0.25 - - 0.25

8 Washing to roller mill 0.70 - - - 0.70

9 Roller mill - 51.02 - - 51.02

10 Fine screen sieves 0.70 - - - 0.70

11 Tippi drying and loading 0.56 0.56

12 Rewashing 2.46 1.46 - - 3.92

13 Rewashing to sizing 0.70 - - - 0.70

14 Roasting 3.48 - - 856.16 859.64

15 Drying 2.10 - - - 2.10

16 Polishing 1.32 - 5.87 - 7.19

17 Packing and loading 0.53 - - - 0.53

Total 27.24 52.73 15.93 856.16 952.02

Note
1. Tippi is the residue of tapioca after extraction of starch

Table 2. Wastewater characteristics at different stages

Parameter Concentration (mg/l)[1]

Primary tank Secondary tank Tertiary tank

Colour Dirty white Dirty white Dirty white

pH 5.4 5.2 4.5

Total solids (TS) 5290 4137 4187

Volatile solids (VS) 4313 3293 3147

Total biochemical oxygen demand 6820 5800 5520

Total chemical oxygen demand 10363 9020 9733

Total kjeldahl nitrogen 92 90 88

Total organic carbon 3353 3247 3150

Total alkalimetric normality 1234 1318 1513

Total volatile acids 1727 2043 2253

BOD:COD ratio 0.65:1 0.64:1 0.57:1

Note
1. All values in mg/l except colour, pH and BOD:COD ratio

Energy for Sustainable Development ! Volume X No. 3 ! September 2006 75

 Short articles

3.3. Start-up of the reactor
The reactor was started in a batch-fed mode, introducing
diluted raw wastewater at increasing OLRs of 0.17, 0.24,
0.40, 0.47, 0.60, and 0.65 kg COD/m3/day during six
weeks. The native anaerobic biomass responded very well
by yielding increased gas production from 93.85 l/kg
COD removed to 256.52 l/kg COD removed with methane
content variation between 20 and 65 % during the period.
The pH of the effluent was found to be in the range
7 ± 0.2. The start-up period was longer (40 days) to
achieve optimum biogas production, to control the alka-
linity, to retard the CO2 toxicity, and to cut off any pos-
sible draining of the active biomass.
3.4. Performance of the reactor
After attaining a consistent stable carbon removal at
OLR of 0.65 kg COD/m3/day (start-up period) the re-
actor was operated with higher loading rates to assess
its performance at different HRTs. The performance was
evaluated up to 1 day HRT at 9.71 kg COD/m3/day
OLR. The performance of the reactor at various HRTs
is presented in Table 3. From the table it is evident that
decrease in the HRT was correlated with inhibition in
the reactor performance through decrease in the COD
removal efficiency.
The reduction in COD removal efficiency may be at-
tributed to the increase in OLR, which requires sufficient
acclimatization period for native microflora to adapt to
the changed environmental conditions of the system [Rao
et al., 2005]. It was clear that for both BOD and COD
removal efficiency, the coefficient of determination (R2)
against OLR was high except during the 10-day HRT due
to the lower value of removal efficiency during the second
week at 10-day HRT. Sayed and de Zeeuw [1988] re-
ported that a good linear regression line could be made
with high coefficient of determination of 0.82 during con-
tinuous operation of a flocculent sludge UASB reactor.
The average BOD loading rate was increased from
0.567 kg/m3/day to 5.693 kg/m3/day during the decrease
of HRT from 10-day to 1-day HRT. The reactor was able
to withstand the increase in loading rate as the loading
was done stepwise. The average BOD removal rate im-
proved from 0.452 kg BOD/m3/day during the 10-day
HRT to 4.109 kg BOD/m3/day during the 1-day HRT and
similarly the average COD removal rate improved from
0.758 kg COD/m3/day during the 10-day HRT to 6.507
kg COD/m3/day during the 1-day HRT.
3.5. Methane production and pH variation during
different HRTs
During the operation of the reactor at different HRTs, the
average gas production was satisfactory since it increased
from 3288 l/d during the 10-day HRT to 9871 l/d during
the 1-day HRT. This increase in gas production indicated
satisfactory reactor performance. From Figure 1 it is clear
that as the HRT decreased, methane production increased.
The highest methane production achieved during 1-day
HRT was 7186 l/day. Also it is obvious from Figure 1
that as the HRT decreased from 10 days to 1 day, the pH
had developed from 5.4 to 5.9 during 10 days of HRT,
5.4 to 6.5 during 7 days of HRT, 5.8 to 7.0 during 5 days
of HRT, 6.1 to 7.0 during 3 days of HRT, 6.2 to 7.1 and
finally from 6.2 to 7.1 during 1 day of HRT, keeping the
pH of influent at 5.2. The maximum development had
occurred at 5-day HRT after which the development was
according to loading rates.
4. Conclusion
Though anaerobic reactors are used for the treatment of
industrial wastewater elsewhere than in the tapioca starch
industry, this study reveals the possibility of using the
hybrid reactor for wastewater treatment and energy

Table 3. Performance evaluation of the reactor with varying HRT

Parameter Magnitude at different HRTs

Hydraulic retention time, days 10 7 5 3 2 1

Average COD influent, mg/l 9815 9793 9699 9646 9673 9711

Average COD removal efficiency, % 77 79 76 71 70 67

Average BOD influent, mg/l 5664 5665 5684 5693 5687 5693

Average BOD removal efficiency, % 80 82 81 76 74 72

Average gas production, l/day 3288 6149 7917 8786 9577 9871

Average BOD loading rate, kg BOD/m3/day 0.57 0.81 1.14 1.90 2.84 5.69
3
Average BOD removal rate, kg BOD/m /day 0.45 0.67 0.92 1.44 2.12 4.11

Average COD loading rate, kg COD/m3/day 0.98 1.40 1.94 3.22 4.84 9.71

Average COD removal rate, kg COD/m3/day 0.76 1.11 1.48 2.29 3.41 6.51

R2 value of BOD removal efficiency against OLR 0.66 0.93 0.98 0.99 0.99 0.96

R2 value of COD removal efficiency against OLR 0.86 0.88 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98

76 Energy for Sustainable Development ! Volume X No. 3 ! September 2006

 Short articles
Figure 1. Variation of methane production with pH for different HRTs
production in the tapioca starch production industry. The
average COD removal rate during 1-day HRT is 6.507 kg
COD/m3/day. The average gas production rises from 3288
l/d during 10 days of HRT to 9871 l/d during 1-day HRT.
Efficient performance of anaerobic digestion of tapioca
starch industry wastewater using a hybrid reactor for en-
ergy recovery was achieved.
Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely thank the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi,
for its grant for carrying out the project and Sri Amman Sago Factory for its help with the
industrial execution in the study.
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