Common anaerobic treatability of pharmaceutical and yeast industry wastewater

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of anaerobic tr eatment of pharmaceutical and baker's yeast industry effluents in a joint t reatment system. Anaerobic treatability studies have been performed in a la b-scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASBR). The experimental s tudy has been carried out for 333 days. The influent COD's during the exper imental study were about 10,000 mg/l. Pharmaceutical wastewater has a 5% of inhibition on the COD removals at the dilution rate of 1/100 or more in th e joint anaerobic treatment with baker's yeast industry effluents. Maximum inhibition of 10% on the average was observed when the system was character ized with acclimation periods. The study has shown that, following the solv ent extraction with pre-aeration process, a common anaerobic treatment can be applied to baker's yeast industry wastewater and to pharmaceutical indus try effluents. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reser ved.