The objective of this work was monitoring the performance of two up flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors (UASB) in a pilot-scale testing with volumes of 908 L and 188 L, installed in series, loaded with swine wastewater with total suspended solids (TSS) ranging from 2216 to 7131 mg L-1, submitted to an hydraulic detention time (HDT) of 62.3 and 31.1 h, in the first reactor, and 12.9 and 6.5 h, in the second reactor. The mean total COD removal efficiency varied from 74.0 to 89.6% in reactor 1, and from 34.3 to 45.1% in reactor 2, resulting average values ranging from 86.6 to 93.1% for the two-stage treatment system under organic volumetric load (OVL) of 3.40 to 14.44 kg CODtotal m-3 reactor d-1 in the reactor 1. The methane concentration in biogas values was over 75% in reactor 1 and 80% in reactor 2. Average pH values in the effluents ranged from 6.9 to 8.2 in reactor 1 and 7.0 to 8.3 for reactor 2. The amount of total volatile acids remained steady showing mean concentrations bellow 200 mg L-1. According to these results the organic loading conditions, concerning to the COD and VSS imposed to the two-stage anaerobic treatment system were not limiting to the sludge blanket development of extremely active and adapted micro biota providing high mean values of organic matter removal, from 86.6 to 93.1 % to the CODtotal and 85.6 to 88.2% to VSS, and the rate of volumetric methane production from 0.156 to 0.289 m³ CH4 kg-1 COD removed.
anaerobic digestion; UASB reactor; swine waste
