JITENDER KUMAR SAINI* AND RAJESH KUMAR LOHCHAB
Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar125 001 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : sainijitender5@gmail.com; ** rajeshlohchab@gmail.com)
(Received : January 17, 2017; Accepted : March 20, 2017)
ABSTRACT
The distillery spent wash is high strength wastewater mainly organic in nature having low pH and high solid content. Without appropriate treatment, its disposal results in water and soil pollution leading to adverse effects on environment. Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors have been widely used for treatment of distillery wastewater. In the present study, performance of UASB reactor was evaluated by increasing feed concentration feeding 25, 50 and 100% distillery wastewater in phases I, II and III, respectively, at HRT of 20 h. The pH of the distillery effluent varied from 5.7 to 7.8 in phase I, 6.2 to 7.8 in phase II and 5.2 to 7.7 in phase III of the study period. The results showed COD reduction of 91, 83 and 72% in phases I, II and III, respectively. BOD and VFA reduction were 89 and 78, 84 and 80 and 72 and 72% in phases I, II and III, respectively. The sludge profile of more than 0.65 and VFA/Alkalinity ratios of less than 0.8 were observed in the end of study which indicated that reactor performed very well. It was also confirmed by high COD and BOD removal rate.
Key words :Effluent, spent wash, UASB, distillery, feed concentration