OLIVE OIL WASTEWATER TREATMENT IN SUPERCRITICAL WATER

摘要

Olive oil production is an economic activity nowadays and this operation generates a large amount of liquid and solid pollutant wastes. The olive oil mill wastewater (OMW), particularly the liquid phase, is becoming a serious environmental problem in the world. OMW is a concentrated effluent with a high organic load. It has high levels of organic chemical oxygen demand (COD), phenolic compounds, phytotoxic properties and resistance to biodegradation. This study presents a unique process to treat OMW. This study evaluates the application of supercritical water gasification for the treatment of OMW at high temperature in a batch reactor. Effect of temperature, reaction time, H2O2 dosage and Fe3+ on COD removal was investigated. The experimental results show that supercritical water gasification is an effective process for removing organic compounds from OMW. Adding a catalyst, Fe3+, significantly improved the COD removal. The best COD removal reached 98.33%. Fe3+ exhibits good catalytic activity.