International Journal of Environmental & Agriculture Research (IJOEAR) ISSN:[2454-1850] [Vol-2, Issue-7, July- 2016] Page | 158 Effect of temperature on biodegradation of textile dyeing effluent using pilot scale UASB Reactor G.Gnanapragasam 1* , V.Arutchelvan 2 , L.Soundari 3 1,3 Associate Prof. Department of Civil Engineering, IFET College of Engineering, Villupuram 605108, India 2 Professor & Head, Department of Civil Engineering, Annamalai University, Annamalainagar 608 002, India. Abstract— This study deals with the effect of temperature on treatment of real textile dyeing effluent using pilot scale two- phase Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor with sago effluent as co-substrate under recycle mode. The temperature of the reactor was varied viz. 35, 40, 45 and 50 0 C. The feed of the reactor was 30% of methanogenic outlet recycled and 70% of 70/30 (sago/textile dyeing effluent) mixing ratio were given at the bottom of the reactor. The reactor was operated at 24 h of HRT. The performance of the bioreactor was evaluated by monitoring the removal of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), removal of color, Volatile Fatty Acid (VFA) and biogas production. The overall COD and color removal were achieved maximum of 98.4% and 99.3% respectively. Based on temperature, the biogas production (0.512 m 3 /d) was maximum at 45 0 C. From the VFA and alkalinity ratio values obtained indicate that the reactors were operated under steady state. The results shows, that the sago and textile dyeing effluent have wide variation in their characteristics were treated on combination, whereas the recycle ratios maintain the stability of reactor. This new technology supports the effective utilization of sago effluent in destruction of dyeing effluent; the optimum temperature for efficient reactor operation was 45 0 C. Keywords— Textile dyeing, sago, UASB, temperature, recycle. I. INTRODUCTION Textile industries are found in most countries and their numbers have increased, particularly in Asia. The annual world production of textiles is about 30 million tonnes requiring 700,000 tonnes of different dyes (Asia et al. 2006) which cause considerable environmental pollution problems. The textile industry which is one of the largest water consumers in the world, discharges wastewater containing various pollutants such as degradable organics, colors, nutrients, pH altering agents, salts, sulfur, toxicants and refractory organics (Wouter et al. 1998). Under typical reactive dyeing conditions, 20–50% of the dye remains in the spent dye bath in its unfixed hydrolyzed form, which has no affinity for fabric, resulting in colored effluents (Lewis 1999; Georgiou et al. 2005). The most commonly used dyes today are reactive dyes for cotton dyeing. Reactive dyes are easily hydrolyzed, resulting in a high portion of unfixed dyes that have to be washed off during the dyeing process (Sen and Deminer 2003) as the discharge of dye house wastewater into the environment is aesthetically displeasing, impedes light penetration, damages the quality of receiving streams and toxic to aquatic life. It is difficult to remove color from the effluents by conventional wastewater treatment systems (Sandhya and Swaminathan 2006; Gnanapragasam et al. 2011). As McCurdy et al. (1991) stated there is no universal method for the removal of color from dye waste; the alternatives depend upon the type of dye wastewater. Anaerobic treatment alone has been shown to remove COD and color from textile dyeing effluents and has the advantage of lower sludge production and lower energy demand compared to aerobic treatment. There are recent reports which are available for treatment of real textile dyeing effluent in anaerobic systems. Among the anaerobic processes, Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor has been widely used to treat variety of industrial and domestic wastewaters all over the world. One common feature offered by all the high-rate processes is their ability to provide high Solid Retention Time (SRT) in relation to Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT). High biomass concentration is maintained in a reactor with relatively low treatment time. The granular sludge with good settling velocities and mechanical strength, and suitable for the treatment of wastewater containing xenobiotic and recalcitrant compounds, and it promotes adaptation of bacteria in toxic compounds, and as well as it can be used for treatment of wastewater previously considered unsuitable for anaerobic treatment (Somasiri et al. 2006). Somasiri et al. (2008) had already reported the colour and COD removal, reactor performance, and stability in textile wastewater treatment by upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor at mesophilic temperature. The aim of this study is to decolourize the real textile wastewater containing textile dye using starch industry effluent as co-substrate in hybrid bi-phasic UASB reactor by varying the temperatures as 35, 40, 45 and 50 0 C. The whole processes were operated at the optimum recycle ratio of 70:30 (Gnanapragasam et al. 2010).