MODELLING TANNERY WASTEWATER TREATMENT TO EVALUATE ALTERNATIVE BIOPROCESSES CONFIGURATIONS

This study aimed at investigating an alternative treatment train comparing with the existing one to evaluate the technical feasibility of anaerobic digestion of vegetable tannery sludge and the co-digestion of sludge and fleshing. Moreover, the sulphide denitrification was tested to treat both the supernatant (after the digestion process) and the biogas. The process was investigated through both experimental activity and modelling activity. The experimental activity included batch and continuous reactors tests at different scales (bench, laboratory and pilot scales). The modelling activity allowed, in addition to improving understanding of the processes, the evaluation of the alternative configurations. The innovative contributions of this research are: • Testing the anaerobic digestion of recalcitrant and potential inhibitory substrates, such as vegetable tannery sludge and fleshing; • Upgrading the existing models to simulate high solids retention time wastewater treatment plants and sulphur metabolism.