Inverse fluidised bed bioreactor enabled high-rate selenate reduction for wastewater treatment

This study evaluated the performance of a laboratory-scale inverse fluidised bed reactor (IFBR) for biological selenate reduction at 30◦C. The IFBR with floating biomass carriers was fed with synthetic mine water (pH 6.0–7.0) containing ~10 mM (1.4 g L− 1 ) selenate, nutrients and 10 mM ethanol as electron donor and inoculated with selenate reducers enriched from anaerobic sludge and environmental samples.