Anaerobic bioflocculation of wool scouring effluent

Lapsirikul, W. and Cord-Ruwisch, R. (1991) Anaerobic bioflocculation of wool scouring effluent. In: International Conference on "Appropriate Waste Management Technologies", 27 - 28 November, Perth, Western Australia pp. 117-120.

Abstract

A two-stage anaerobic bioflocculation process is investigated to successfully flocculate the emulsified wool grease from wool scouring effluent. After 110 days of continuous operation, the laboratory process gave promising results by removing between 70 and 90% wool grease and about 60 to 86% COD at a combined hydraulic residence time (HRT) of 4 to 10 days. Methane production and volatile fatty acids consumption were negligible. Most of the grease was thought to be removed by flocculation as a result of anaerobic activity. Since the supernatant of the treated effluent still contained residual grease of over 1 500 mg/L, further purification is necessary. The supernatant was easily treatable by the classical aerobic activated sludge treatment (internal sludge recycle), which removed virtually all of the residual wool grease resulting in less than 100 mg/l in the final effluent, at an HRT of 3 days.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Murdoch Affiliation(s):	School of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	Murdoch University
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/10129

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