Novel Treatment of Sugar Mill Wastewater in a Coupled System of Aged Refuse Filled Bioreactors (ARFB): Full-Scale

Sugar is the most important food supplement of our daily diet. During production, sugar mills use a large volume water and produce significant amount wastewater polluted with high organic compounds. Therefore, it necessary to treat before their disposal. For this reason, article presents results obtained from monitoring coupled system aged refuse filled bioreactors (ARFB) in full scale mill. The consists two (a primary one -ARFB1- rectification -ARFB2-) arranged series identical geometries. ARFB1-ARFB2 was evaluated stages. first stage (maintenance period) for 28 weeks, second (Zafra season) 29 weeks. fed mill (SMW) chemical oxygen demand (COD) 2787 ± 1552 mg/L 2601 722 mg/L, respectively. As results, we observed rapid stabilization over 2 months. In addition, found achieved an average COD removal 94.9%, final effluent (E2) concentration below maximum permissible limits Mexican international regulations all analyzed parameters. Finally, study show that full-scale novel technology efficient process main contaminants affect mills.