Anaerobic biodegradability of terephthalic acid andits inhibitory effect on anaerobic digestion

The behavior of terephthalic acid (TPA) in anaerobic system has been studied bysemicontinuous bioassays under mesophilic condition with artificial TPA production wastewater. Theeffect of different loading rate of TPA on anaerobic digestion was studied under certain CODloading rate. The results showed that the TPA could be degraded anaerobically within a relativelylow range. The degradable concentration of TPA was less than 500 mg/L in the digester, higherconcentration of TPA could not be degraded totally and the rate of degradation might decrease withthe increase of feed amount. The inhibition is related to both loading rate and accumulatedconcentration of TPA in the digesters.