Tratamiento de aguas residuales de procesamientos cárnicos mediante procesos fisicoquímicos y biológicos convencionales (lodos activados) a escala de laboratorio

Abstract

The meat industry is considered one of the most polluting industries due to the amount of waste generated in its production processes: effluents with a high organic load, high concentrations of solids, colloidal material, fats, oils and blood. The present work evaluates a wastewater treatment system in the meat industry, through conventional physicochemical and biological processes on a laboratory scale, in order to determine the removal efficiency of the organic load measured in the form of COD. To do this, the effluent was characterized and a primary coagulation-flocculation treatment and a secondary treatment with activated sludge were applied. For the physical-chemical treatment, the efficiency of three coagulants (Aluminum Sulfate, Polyaluminum Chloride and Ferric Chloride) at six different concentrations each was analyzed. For secondary treatment, activated sludge was added to the water sample previously clarified with the most efficient coagulant and the COD was measured for 8 days to determine the removal percentage. It is concluded that the initial pH is within the optimal ranges for the formation of clots, so its regulation is not necessary. The Polyaluminum Chloride presented a higher percentage of COD removal with an efficiency of 50.55% at a concentration of 0.01 mg/L, for the biological treatment, an efficiency of 46.45% is obtained and the proposed treatment reaches a total efficiency of 91.81%