AVALIAÇÃO DA APLICABILIDADE DE PROCESSOS BIOLÓGICOS NO TRATAMENTO DE EFLUENTES OLEOSOS COM ELEVADA CARGA ORGÂNICA

Abstract

The increasing global demand for energy and the diversity of manufactured products generates diverse residues that are frequently difficult to treat or degrade. The utilization of petroleum and its derivatives cause environmental damage via oil spillages and effluents generated by diverse processes such as car washes, petrol stations, public transport companies and even industrial kitchens. In this study a biological treatment was used as an alternative to treat these pollutants, which included two basic treatments to remove organic material: an aerobic process namely activated sludge and an anaerobic process, comprising a UASB reactor. The objective of this work was to treat by biological processes, a synthetic effluent derived from petroleum which characterized physico-chemically, as having oily characteristics, to evaluate comparatively the efficiency of organic matter removal via two different processes of biodegradation. The results obtained were submitted to statistical analysis by Box Plots and ANOVA at a significance level of 5%. The experimental work with bench scale activated sludge and UASB reactors was performed at The Experimental Station for the Biological Treatment of Sewage EXTRABES in Campina Grande - PB, using effluents synthesized in the laboratory to feed the reactors at elevated loads of organic matter containing lubricating oil and surfactants. The adopted treatments had significant organic carbon removal efficiencies; with values of 23.7 to 32% for aerobic treatment and 42 to 51% with anaerobic treatment thus demonstrating that UASB treatment was the more efficient process and could be adopted for the treatment of oily and surfactant-containing effluents.