FUZZY RULE BASED APPROACH FOR MODELING BIOGAS PRODUCTION RATE IN A REAL SCALE UASB REACTOR TREATING DISTILLERY WASTEWATER

Abstract

The high rate anaerobic biological processes are used for treatment of industrial wastewater and these processes are subjected to many disturbances due to variation in quantity and quality of wastewater. Many uncertainties are involved in their operation, control and measurement of parameters. A fuzzy model is developed for prediction of biogas production rate in a real scale UASB reactor treating distillery wastewater. The parameters used for daily monitoring and operation of the plant (flow rate, influent COD, effluent COD, pH, temperature and biogas production rate) are used for model development. The performance of the model was evaluated using statistical parameters. The correlation coefficient (R value) of 0.9039 and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 3250.59 was observed indicating good agreement between the predicted values and the observed values of biogas production rate. The model will be useful for assessment of performance of the real scale UASB reactor treating distillery spent wash and also to control the operation of the plant.