The agro chemicals industry located within the prominent middle east based leading agriculture country is manufacturing pesticides and herbicides for its clientele providing complete crop protection programs to the agriculture industry.
THE PROBLEM
A representative analysis of their effluent had following characteristics:
Up to 12,000 mg/lit COD comprising solvents in it
Up to 600 mg/lit inhibitory, active ingredients and its by products
500 to 800 mg/lit Total Kjehldahl Nitrogen (TKN) containing mostly Organic-N associated with slowly hydrolysable s-triazine.
Up to 1500 mg/lit Sulphates (SO4-)
10,000 to 25,000 mg/lit Salt Concentration as NaCl
Due to their production facilities situated within environmentally sensitive zone, the industry required to treat the effluent to very higher standard achieving COD < 250 ppm and TN < 10 ppm for the effluent discharge.
THE CHALLENGE
Very high amount of solvents present in the effluent making conventional wet oxidation processes very costly
Very high amount of inhibitory toxic substances, higher salinity and which resulted in only 4-60% COD reduction with conventional suspended growth based processes
Due to a very wide crop rotation practiced in the region, the products manufactured at the facilities varied a lot causing a large qualitative and quantitative fluctuations in the effluent composition and load received at the treatment facilities.
THE SOLUTION
During our extensive pilot testing and R & D for the project spanning over two years period, it was found that:
A combination of Anaerobic and Aerobic process provides better performance compared to Aerobic only step due to hydrolysis of toxic organics during anaerobic steps
Immobilization of micro organisms using Levapor carriers offer higher process performance and remarkable process stability with very high level of nitrification and denitrification despite presence of toxic inhibitory active agro chemicals in the effluent.
THE DESIGN
Based on our results achieved during pilot, a full scale biological process comprising micro aerobic pre treatment followed by Anaerobic treatment and classic anoxic-Aerobic process configuration for nitrification and denitrification was offered using Levapor carriers.
THE PERFORMANCE
During the full scale operation, it was found that contribution of Anaerobic Step using Levapor carriers was crucial to the biodegradation of complex molecules providing very high amount of overall COD reduction.
Pollutant
influent concentrations
removal
overall
in different steps
mg/L
%
MAE+ANA
AER
Aromatic solvents
1,3-5,0
100,0
90,0
10,0
Methanol
930-1980
100,0
95,0-100,0
0-5,0
Dichloromethane
4,0-42
100,0
100,0
0,0
MIBK
9,0-330
100,0
76,0
24,0
Amines
56-74
100,0
90,0-100,0
0,0-10,0
Triazine derivatives
96,5-114,3
100,0
64,2
35,8
Carbamates
17,8-24,3
80,0
72,0
28,0
Herbicides total
104-337
91,5
75
25
Table 1. Biological removal of solvents, single chemicals and herbicides by immobilized special biomass in the microaerobic-anaerobic(MAE+ANA) and aerobic(AER) treatment step
LEVAPOR Technology Advantages
The implementation of Micro Aerobic-Anaerobic-PreDenitrification-Nitrification treatment steps for the Agro Chemicals effluent offered following benefits:
Complete removal of Solvents, amines, MIBK, Triazines from the effluent
Stable Anaerobic and Nitrification processes achieving 85-93 % COD reduction
Remarkable nitrogen removal achieving lowest level of ammonical nitrogen and nitrates in the effluent eliminating TKN concentrations in the range of 300-800 mg/lit
Lower energy consumption and sludge production
For your specific effluent generated from agro chemicals industry, We can provide you optimum solution meeting the stringent discharge standards. Contact Levapor team for further action at