Performance and Modeling of an Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Reactor for Treating High Salinity Wastewater from Heavy Oil Production

In this study, an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor was applied to treat the high salinity waste- water from heavy oil production process. At a HRT of ≥24 h, the COD removal reached as high as 65.08% at an influent COD ranging from 350 mg/L to 640 mg/L. An average of 74.33% oil reduction was also achieved in the UASB reactor at an initial oil concentration between 112 mg/L and 205 mg/L. These results indicated that this heavy oil production related wastewater could be degraded efficiently in the UASB reactor. Granular sludge was formed in this reactor. In addition, two models, built on the back propagation neural network (BPNN) theory and linear regression techniques were developed for the simulation of the UASB system performance in the oily wastewater biodegradation. The average error of COD and oil removal was -0.65% and 0.84%, respectively. The results indicated that the models built on the BPNN theory were well- fitted to the detected data, and were able to simulate and predict the removal of COD and oil by the UASB reactor .