KINETICS OF AEROBIC TREATMENT OF TWO-PHASE OLIVE-MILL WASTE BY ACTIVED SLUDGE IN SEQUENCING BATCH REACTOR

Olive mill waste has a very high organic load, high amount of toxicity/phytotoxicity-associated compounds, low pH value and high electrical conductivity. In this study, the removal of COD (chemical oxygen demand) and total phenols from extracted wastewater (EW) from two-phase olive-mill waste (TPOMW) in sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was studied. The experiments were carried out at 23 °C with the initial COD concentration of 5 g L-1 and 10 g L-1 at different initial concentrations of activated sludge (3 and 6 g L-1). The obtained results showed that activated sludge possessed a strong ability to degraded organic matter and total phenols. The COD and phenols removal efficiency was between 80 - 90 %. Toxicity Impact Index (TII50) was 312.5 which indicated that this wastewater is extremely toxic. Four different kinetic models were select to describe the kinetics of TPOMW biodegradation. The lowest deviation and the best fit with experimental data were achieved using Endo-Haldane model