Treatment of Molasses-Based distillery wastewater in a pilot scale Anaerobic Sequencing

Batch Reactor
Mehmood Aslam
Abstract:
Distillery wastewater is an important environmental concern due to the high concentration of
inorganic and organic pollutant. It causes high pollution in the water body if added directly to it
without any treatment. To its save discharge many treatment methods are applied to it to
maintain its pollution load to allowable limits. In this study, Anaerobic sequencing batch
reactor(ASBR) was used to treat the molasses based distillery wastewater. In this study a pilot
scale ASBR was designed of capacity 1000 L. A diluted influent of 1 and 2 part of wastewater
and water respectively, was passed through the ASBR. Diluted influent was used due to the high
concentration of COD of original wastewater sample. For treatment, mixture consisted of 65%
inoculum and 35% diluted wastewater was used in ASBR. The inoculum was taken from nearby
wastewater treatment facility. The test was done on different time durations and two trial was
done on a single time duration. The time duration was 24, 40 and 64 hours cycle with different
stirring durations 8, 24 and 48 hours. The results showed that COD and BOD removal 60 percent
and 86 percent respectively on 8 hours’ reaction time. The results also showed that on 8-hours
reaction time the biogas production in ASBR had the highest methane content (72%). On 24 h
and 48 h reaction periods the Methane content was 66% and 50%, respectively. Sludge produced
after the reaction had 0.91 to 1.02% total NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium).