Biological Treatment of Pickling Industry Wastewater in an Activated Sludge Unit

Authors: ALİ R. DİNÇER, Fikret KARGI

Abstract: Biological treatment of pickling industry wastewaters usually result in low COD removal efficiencies because of plasmolysis of cells due to high salt content (%3-5) of the wastewater. Utilization of salt tolerant, halophilic organisms ( e.g, Halobacter halobium) along with activated sludge culture usually results in better treatment performances. Biological treatability of high strength, saline wastewater of pickling industry was investigated in this study. Biological treatment studies were realized in single and two stage activated sludge systems. Halobacter added activated sludge culture was used throughout the studies. In the single stage activated sludge process, when sludge age was ten days and the hydraulic residence time was 30h, nearly 97% COD removal efficiencies were obtained. In the two stage activated sludge process, nearly 95% COD removal efficiency was obtained when hydraulic residence times were \theta_H=20 h in each stage and sludge ages were \theta_C=10 d. Kinetic parameters of the system were determined by using the experimental data obtained with single stage activated sludge process.

Keywords: Pickling industry wastewater, biological treatment, halophilic bacteria

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