Internal cleaning of waste water from smokehouse

In German butcheries and companies of the meat processing industry, about 2 8 500 smokehouses are operated. The tarry deposits on the chamber walls pro duced during the smoking process are removed periodically with alkaline cle aning agents. The resulting waste water contains in addition to a high COD also toxic phenols and PAH in enriched form. One passes in an increased man ner to prohibit the discharge tof untreated smokehouse waste water into the public sewerage. Therefore small and middle-size companies without own was te water treatment must dipose of their smokehouse effluents in aa separate manner which causes costs of about 850 DM/m(3). The following contribution describes the suitability of the chemical-physical techniques filtration a ggregation, precipitation/flocculation and adsorption to reduce the waste w ater parameters COD, PAH and phenols. In addition to efficiency and economy of these techniques, especially the possibility of a simple and practice-o riented realisation on site is evaluated. By means of adsorption and precip itation/flocculation, high cleaning performances are achieved with simple h andling. Exceptionally economical is the adsorption with granulated active carbon. Depending on size of enterprise and the accumulation of waste water , the investments amortise for this technique after 1.5 to 6 years.