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Anaerobic digestion is one of the most promising technologies for disposing olive mill wastewaters (OMWs). The process is generally carried out in the conventional contact bioreactors, which however are often unable to efficiently remove OMW phenolic compounds, that therefore occur in the effluents. The possibility of mitigating this problem by employing an anaerobic OMW-digesting microbial consortium passively immobilized in column reactors packed with granular activated carbon (GAC) or “Manville” silica beads (SB) was here investigated. Under batch conditions, both GAC- and SB-packed-bed biofilm reactors exhibited OMW COD and phenolic compound removal efficiencies markedly higher (from 60% to 250%) than those attained in a parallel anaerobic dispersed growth reactor developed with the same inoculum; GAC-reactor exhibited COD and phenolic compound depletion yields higher by 62% and …