STUDIES ON DISTILLERY WASTEWATER TREATMENT SYSTEM WITH REVERSE OSMOSIS

Abstract

Distillery wastewater, generally known as stillage, slops, vinasses, or dunder, constitutes a high volume, high strength acidic waste that presents significant disposal or treatment problem. Tighter water quality legislation requires increased land area for disposal and therefore, implies the need for an optimal treatment. The need for stringent pollution control and legislation provides tremendous opportunities for the use of membrane process in all aspects of pollution control, from end-of-pipe treatment to prevention and reduction of waste. The present work deals with a study that involves examining the efficacy of introducing reverse osmosis (RO) process in distillery wastewater treatment as an alternative polishing treatment for the ultimate objective of planning zero discharge from ETP system. It specifically studies alternative systems viz., ferti-irrigation, biocomposting without RO and biocomposting with RO treatment system after anaerobic treatment for a distillery of capacity 120 KLD for comparing other alternatives in vague. The operating cost per m3 of effluent for aerobic treatment followed by ferti-irrigation is 21 Rs./m3 of effluent, for RO system is approximately 29 Rs./m3 of effluent, for biocomposting is 99 Rs./m3 of effluent and therefore, for RO plus biocomposting it is approximately 128 Rs./m3 for getting zero discharge. Studies on the RO system studies have been done on a 1000 LPH reverse osmosis pilot plant on partially treated distillery wastewater using disc and tube membrane. Rejections of the RO membrane in terms of conductivity, TDS, and COD were higher than 93%, 98%, and 99%, respectively. Results of full-scale reverse osmosis plant treating 240-300 m3 per day at Shaw Wallace distillery Ltd, Meerut have been reported and rejections of the RO membrane in terms of conductivity and COD were found higher than 94.2% and 99%, respectively.