Introduction to Industrial

Effluent Treatment
Hector Garcia MSc PhD

Outline
1) Introduction
2) Industrial Environmental History
3) Undesirable Wastewater Characteristics
4) Waste Characteristics Estimating the
Organic Content

1) Introduction
Industrial wastewater strongly differ from municipal
wastewater.
Different types of pollutants and at different concentrations
The design, construction an operation of industrial effluent
treatment plant needs to consider diverse features of
industrial wastewater
Industries may directly discharge their treated wastewater
to a receiving water body, or indirectly to a municipal
wastewater treatment plant
Pollution prevention should be the first step in the treatment,
planning, and design of an industrial facility

 Issues Related to Wastewater treatment:

Types of industries and characteristics of wastewater
Regulations
Waste and wastewater management alternatives
Treatment processes and their applications
Sludge generation, handling, and disposal

2) Industrial Environmental History

Pollution of ground and surface waters may be linked to the
industrial production of manufactured goods and wasting
liquids and solid matter.
This type of pollution did not begin until the turn of the
twentieth century
Basic industries such as coal, power production, dairy,
textile, cannery, tannery, and paper (goods necessary for the
sustenance of life) were the first to face pollution problems.
Chemical industries (inorganic) such as chlorine, lye, and
soda ash were next. These were followed by basic organic
chemical plants (sugar, starch, and cellulosic wastes).

 At that time industries used similar treatment systems than

municipalities to treat their effluents.
No big pollution episodes were observed due to i) the
relative compatibility of these industrial and municipal
wastes; and ii) the sparseness of industrial plants and the
abundance of receiving water
After World War II new products and new wastes evolved
that exhibited toxicity and nonbiodegradability.
Normal municipal (sewage) waste treatment plant were not
effective anymore. Wastes found their way into the
environment with disastrous results.
The complexity of the wastewater treatment systems
increased mainly to satisfy environmental regulations

 The move to pollution prevention has been a slow one.

Company managers began to realize that recovering and
reusing or selling their wastes was more practical and
economical than treating and disposing of them
Recovery and reuse or sale of waste products is still growing
although may be hampered by transportation hazards and
costs
The era of waste utilization rather than waste treatment is
slowly emerging.
During this course same examples to describe how the
waste utilization can be accomplished are include.

3) Undesirable Wastewater Characteristics

Some of the industrial constituents that may have to be
removed before discharge:
1. Soluble organics: depletion of dissolved oxygen
2. Suspended solids: progressive decomposition resulting
in oxygen depletion and noxious gases
3. Priority organic pollutants: cause taste and odor and in
some cases are carcinogenic
4. Heavy metals, cyanide, and toxic organics:
5. Color and turbidity: aesthetic problems

6. Nitrogen and phosphorus: enhances eutrophication and

stimulate undesirable algae growth
7. Refractory substances (resistant to biodegradation): toxic
to aquatic life
8. Oil and floating material: unpleasant conditions
9. Volatile materials such as hydrogen sulfide: Air pollution
problems
10. Aquatic toxicity: substance present in the effluent that are
toxic to aquatic species

 Volume and strength of industrial wastewater are usually

defined in terms of units of production: (example for a pulp
and paper mill waste)
Volume = cubic meters per tonne of pulp
Strength = kilograms of BOD per tonne pulp

4) Waste Characteristics Estimating the

Organic Content
The organic content of the waste can be estimated by:
o BOD5 (Biological Oxygen Demand): measures the
biodegradable organic carbon
o COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand): measures the total
organic carbon
o TOC (Total Organic Carbon): measures the total carbon
both organic and inorganic
When performing routine plant control, BOD is not a useful
test due to the long incubation time requirements. TOC has
become a common and popular method due to its simplicity
of measurement

 Correlations between BOD, COD, and TOC can be

developed
The BOD, COD, and TOC test are gross measures of
organic content. They do not reflect the response of
wastewater to various types of biological treatment
technologies

Table 1 BOD and COD characteristics for a variety of industrial effluents

(W. Wesley Eckenfelder Jr, (2000)