Detoxification of olive mill wastewater by electrocoagulation and sedimentation processes

Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is characterised by its high suspended solids content (SS), high turbidity (NTU), chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration up to 100 g l(-1) and toxic phenolic compounds concentration up to 10 g l(-1). This study examined the effect of a physico-electrochemical method to detoxify olive mill wastewater prior an anaerobic biotreatment process. The proposed pre-treatment process consisted in a preliminary electrocoagulation step in which most phenolic compounds were polymerised, followed by a sedimentation step. The BOD5/COD ratio of the electrocoagulated OMW increased from 0.33, initial value, to 0.58. Furthermore, the sedimentation step yielded the removal of 76.2%, 75% and 71% of phenolic compounds, turbidity and suspended solid, respectively, after 3 days of plain settling. The combination of electrocoagulation and sedimentation allowed a COD reduction and decoloration of about 43% and 90%, respectively. This pre-treatment decreases the inhibition of Vibrio fisheri luminescence by 66.4%. Continuous anaerobic biomethanization experiments conducted in parallel with raw OMW and electrocoagulated OMW before and after sedimentation at a loading rate of 6 g COD l(-1) day(-1), proved that the final pre-treated OMW was bioconverted into methane at high yield while raw OMW was very toxic to anaerobic microorganisms. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.