Review of Anaerobic baffled reactor for treatment of industrial wastewater in Nigeria

Abstract

Industrialization, although with its gain has also led to environmental degradation. One of such degradation is pollution. Water we know is essential to life but with industrialization, the existence is being greatly threatened. The need to treat wastewater has become incontrovertibly important as man’s activities in the environment has depleted the limited available water sources daily. These activities include indiscriminate discharge of untreated wastewater into neighboring water bodies thereby causing pollution to the environment and aquatic life. For years, conventional wastewater treatment processes have been adopted and found reasonably successful in treating effluents from wastewater in order to meet the required standard before discharge. The review of the anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR) in the management of industrial wastewater is done in this chapter. The review considers the use of ABR in Nigeria for the treatment of industrial wastewater. The ABR’s basic principle, applications, merits, demerits and challenges (in Nigeria) is addressed.