This is the pre-print previous reviewed version of the following article: Val del Rio, A., Figueroa, M., Mosquera-Corral, A., Campos, J. L., & Mendez, R. (2013). Stability of Aerobic Granular Biomass Treating the Effluent from A Seafood Industry. International Journal of Environmental Research, 7(2), 265-276, which has been published in final form at https://ijer.ut.ac.ir/article_606_0.html. This article may be used for non-commercial purposesThe aerobic granular systems represent a good alternative to substitute the conventional activated sludge process in the treatment of industrial effluents due to the lower surface requirements. In this work the effluent from a seafood industry, characterized by a high variability and the presence of residual amounts of coagulant and flocculant reagents, was used to study the development of aerobic granular biomass and its stability. In a first stage with OLRs between 2 and 5 kg CODS/m3∙d the development of aerobic granular biomass was promoted with good physical properties: SVI of 35 mL/g TSS, density of 60 g VSS/Lgranule and average diameter of 2.8 mm. In a second stage the continuous change in the OLR applied from 3 to 13 kg CODS/m3∙d, to simulate the real conditions of the industry, showed that the removal of organic matter was not affected (90%) but the aerobic granules disintegrated. The maximum OLR treated in the system without granules disintegration was around 4.4 kg CODS/m3∙d. The nitrogen removal was 30% (for biomass assimilation) and the maximum ammonia removal was around 65% and depending on the solids retention time, the free ammonia concentration and the average granule diameterThis work was funded by the Spanish Government (TOGRANSYS CTQ2008-06792-C02-01, NOVEDAR_Consolider CSD2007-00055), Xunta de Galicia (project coordinated by Espina y Delfin S.L. PGIDIT06TAM004) and Ministry of Education of Spain (FPU AP2006-01478). Authors want to thank Mar Orge, Mónica Dosil and Miriam Vieites for their support in the analytical techniquesS
