Nitrogen Fixing Biomass for Aerobic Treatment of Soft Drink Bottling Plant Wastewater

In order to achieve satisfactory biological treatment of wastewater, the wastewater should contain sufficient carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace minerals to meet the metabolic requirements for cell growth. For most food processing wastes, nutritional balance is not a problem since there usually is enough carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace minerals. However, certain food processing wastewaters, such as those from sugar refineries, tapioca processing, pineapple canning and processing , and soft drink bottling processing, have a deficiency of nitrogen which must be added in proper amounts to achieve appropriate biological treatment of these wastewaters. Modification of the activated sludge process for the treatment of nitrogen-deficient organic wastewaters has been studied (1) (2) in order to achieve effective COD removal, to reduce the additional cost of nitrogen and to minimize the nitrogen concentration in the effluent.