Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Combined biological processing and microfiltration in the treatment of unhairing wastewater

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Environmental Science and Pollution Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

The unhairing step, a part of the beamhouse process, is particularly polluting, generating an alkaline wastewater with high concentrations of organic and inorganic matter. The aim of this study was to evaluate the treatment of this industrial wastewater using a combination of biological and microfiltration processes.

Materials and methods

The performance of the activated sludge system (AS) was evaluated under varying organic loading rate (OLR) from 0.9 to 3.4 kg chemical oxygen demand (COD) m−3 day−1 and decreasing hydraulic retention time (HRT) from 3 to 1.6 days.

Results

For an HRT of 3 days, the increase of OLR significantly affected the removal of organic matter. Therefore, the biological organic matter removal of unhairing wastewater decreased from 92% to 66% for COD and from 87 to 53% for biological oxygen demand (BOD5). GC-MS analyses showed that biological treatment of unhairing wastewater contributed to the removal of long chain fatty acids and their degradation products. Microfiltration of unhairing wastewater was performed using 0.2 μm pore-size membranes in tangential filtration. The highest removal efficiencies were obtained for bacteria (100%) and turbidity (98.4%) which confirmed the importance of the microfiltration step in treatment of unhairing wastewater. The result showed that the flux decay rate was greatest at the start of the microfiltration assay (90 L h−1 m2), becoming 60.7 L h−1 m2 after 32 min.

Conclusion

This change indicated that fouling occurred rapidly once the membrane module was put into operation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • AFNOR Receuil des normes afnor (1997). Qualité de l’eau, Méthodes d’analyse, Ed. Afnor.

  • Alonso E, Santos A, Solis GJ, Riesco P (2001) On the feasibility of urban wastewater tertiary treatment by membranes: a comparative assessment. Desalination 141:39–51

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bai R, Leow HF (2002) Microfiltration of activated sludge wastewater-the effect of system operation parameters. Sep Purif Technol 29:189–198

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Benítez FJ, Acero JL, Leal AI (2006) Application of microfiltration and ultrafiltration processes to cork processing wastewaters and assessment of the membrane fouling. Sep Purif Technol 50:354–364

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benítez FJ, AceroJL LealAI, González M (2009) The use of ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes for the purification of cork processing wastewater. J Hazard Mater 162:1438–1445

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bin Abas MR, Simoneit BRT, Elias V, Cabral JA, Cardoso JN (1995) Composition of higher molecular weight matter in smoke aerosol from biomass combustion in Amazonia. Chemosphere 30:995–1015

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brites AM, De Pinho MN (2000) Ultrafiltration for colour removal of tannery dyeing wastewaters. Desalination 130:47–154

    Google Scholar 

  • Byss M, Tříska J, Elhottová D (2007) GC-MS-MS analysis of bacterial fatty acids in heavily creosote-contaminated soil samples. Anal Bioanal Chem 387:1573–1577

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cassano A, Molinari R, Romano M, Drioli E (2001) Treatment of aqueous effluents of the leather industry by membrane processes. J Membr Sci 181:111–126

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Costa CR, Botta R, Espindola CM EL, Golivi P (2008) Electrochemical treatment of tannery wastewater using DSA® electrodes. J Hazard Mater 153:616–627

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gomèz V, Pasamontes A, Callao MP (2006) Factorial design for optimising chromium determination in tanning wastewater. Microchem J 83:98–104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karahan Ö, Dogruel S, Dulekgurgen E, Orhon D (2008) COD fractionation of tannery wastewaters—particle size distribution, biodegradability and modelling. Water Res 42:1083–1092

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre O, Vasudevan N, TorrijosM TK, Moletta R (2005) Halophilic biological treatment of tannery soak liquor in a sequencing batch reactor. Water Res 39:1471–1480

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre O, Vasudevan N, Torrijos M, Thanasekaran K, Moletta R (2006) Anaerobic digestion of tannery soak liquor with an aerobic post treatment. Water Res 40:1492–1500

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mameri N, Halet F, Drouiche M, Grib H, Lounici H, Pauss A, Piron D, Belhocine D (2000) Treatment of olive mill washing water by ultrafiltration. Can J Chem Eng 78:590–595

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mlaik N, Bouzid J, Gharsallah N, Belbahri L, Woodward S, Mechichi T (2009) Investigation of endogenous biomass efficiency in the treatment of unhairing effluents from the tanning industry. Environ Technol 30:911–919

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ouejhani A, Hellal F, Dachraoui M, Lalleve G, Fauvarque JF (2008) Application of Doehlert matrix to the study of electrochemical oxidation of Cr(III) to Cr(VI) in order to recover chromium from wastewater tanning baths. J Hazard Mater 157:423–431

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Parameshwaran K, Fane AG, Cho BD, Kim KJ (2001) Analysis of microfiltration performance with constant flux processing of secondary effluent. Water Res 35:4349–4358

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ratledge C (1978) Degradation of aliphatic hydrocarbons. In: Watkinson RJ (ed) Development in biodegradation of hydrocarbons, 1st edn. Applied Sciences, London, pp 1–46

    Google Scholar 

  • Ravazzini AM, Van Nieuwenhuijzen AF, Van Der Graaf JHMJ (2005) Direct ultrafiltration of municipal wastewater: comparison between filtration of raw sewage and primary clarifier effluent. Desalination 178:51–62

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sadr Ghayeni SB, Madaeni SS, Fane AG, Schneider RP (1996) Aspects of microfiltration and reverse osmosis in municipal wastewater reuse. Desalination 106:25–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scholz W, Lucas M (2003) Techno-economic evaluation of membrane filtration for the recovery and re-use of tanning chemicals. Water Res 37:1859–1867

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sridang Cheng P, Pottier A, Wisniewski Ch, Grasmick A (2008) Performance and microbial surveying in submerged membrane bioreactor for seafood processing wastewater treatment. J Membr Sci 317:43–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Statistical Package for Social Sciences 9.0 (1999) User manual. SPSS Inc., Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Suthanthararajan R, Ravindranath E, Chitra K, Umamaheswari B, Ramesh T, Rajamani S (2004) Membrane application for recovery and reuse of water from treated tannery wastewater. Desalination 164:151–156

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Szpyrkowicz L, Santosh NK, Rao NN, Shanta S (2005) Influence of anode material on electrochemical oxidation for the treatment of tannery wastewater. Water Res 39:1601–1613

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Vidal G, Nieto J, Cooman K, Gajardo C, Bornhardt M (2004) Unhairing effluents treated by activated sludge system. J Hazard Mater B122:143–149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zucconi FA, Pera MF, Bertoldi M (1981) Evaluating toxicity of immature compost. Biocycle 22:54–57

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank Pr A. Ayadi from the Engineering School of Sfax for help in the microfiltration assay.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Sfax ENIS, Laboratoire Eau, Energie et Environnement, Route de Soukra, BP W 3038, Sfax, Tunisia

    Najwa Mlaik & Jalel Bouzid

  2. Institute of Biology, Laboratory of Soil Biology, University of Neuchâtel, CH-2009, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Lassad Belbahri

  3. Department of Plant and Soil Science, Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Cruickshank Building, St. Machar Drive, Aberdeen, AB24 3UU, Scotland, UK

    Steve Woodward

  4. Département de Génie Biologique, Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Sfax ENIS, Route de Soukra, BP 1173 3038, Sfax, Tunisia

    Tahar Mechichi

Authors
  1. Najwa Mlaik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jalel Bouzid
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Lassad Belbahri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Steve Woodward
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Tahar Mechichi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Najwa Mlaik.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mlaik, N., Bouzid, J., Belbahri, L. et al. Combined biological processing and microfiltration in the treatment of unhairing wastewater. Environ Sci Pollut Res 19, 226–234 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-011-0543-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-011-0543-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation