In an anaerobic reactor, seeding sludge is needed to start-up the anaerobic system. The inoculum (sludge) used contains bacteria in form of VSS and organic content in form of COD. Right??
Hence, how could the COD concentration in the sludge affects the treatment process of wastewater??
For example, an influent COD of the wastewater is 1000 mg/L, but the seed sludge contains 32137 mg/L of COD. How could be possible to treat a wastewater that enters a reactor at 1000 mg/L of COD, while the seed sludge contains high COD????
COD does not only talk of degradable organic content. It will tell you about the oxygen required to oxidize all the substances (Organic as well as inorganic) by simple chemical means. I fail to understand as to why do you want to treat an influent having 1000 ppm of COd with a sludge having 32000ppm of COD? Secondly what will be dilution of this sludge in the influent? I would not do such a process for treating such an influent by this method.
This situation is routine.
For example in domestic wastewater treatment, we use about 4gr/L MLSS that may have about 5 to 10 gr/L COD to treat only 300 mg/L influent COD.
We dont analyze COD with suspended solids together. It is better to check the soluble COD (filtered) instead to study the performance of a reactor including anaerobics.
Most (if not all) COD (organics in the form of living cells) in the inoculum are bound to biomass, so it wont go to effluent.
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