Does anyone have any experience of treating Phenol manufacturing (phenol produced from oxidation of cumene) wastewater? Is this wastewater biodegradable?
Dear Upendra: The basic answer to your question is YES. Phenolic wastewater can be treated and practically are treated by biological technologies in full scale operations since 30ies of the last century.
Before evaluation of treatibility of a wastewater it is very helpfull perform analysis of main pollutants and evaluate their treatibility at first. After knowing what causes pollution in wastewater it is much easier to find technology for wastewater treatment.
Best regards
Vit
Yes, phenolics are conditionally biodegradeable. The key parameters are phenolics concentration(s), oxygen and nutrient ratio (C:N:P).
Dear Vit and James,
I am looking for treatment of Phenol manufacturing wastewater. It contains a small concentration of phenol (C6H6O) in addition to compounds like acetone, hydroxyacetone, mesityl oxide, etc. Except phenol there is nothing phenolic in nature. Has anyone treated wastewater from Phenol manufacturing plant?
Kindly, if you like, please look at the website of BioCastle Water Technologies (Proper disclosure: the company is under my own), that is specialize in biological treatment of a selective contaminants using a unique encapsulation method: The SBP Technology. they are using a selective bacterial culture such as Pseudomonas putida to biodegrade various of phenols types: www.bio-castle.com. Goodluck, Ofir.
Also, please look at the article:
The potential of autochthonous microbial culture encapsulation in a confined environment for phenol biodegradation.
Ofir.
Phenolics are in general biodegradable, depending on the conditons and other compounds present in the wastewatwer. First of all, I suppose the facory is already running and you have access to effflent samples. If this is afirmative did you already make a BOD test ? Do you know how to aclimatize a microbial culture?
For your decission it is very important to know the maximu phenolics concentration in wastewater. Commonly bacteria are capable to degrade phenol up to 1,100 mg/L. If the concentration are higher phenols start to inhibit bacterial function. The solution for this problém is to employ yeasts as a part of microbial consortia for phenol wastewater treatment. Activated sludge in wastewater treatment plants treating phenolic wastewater contains yeasts in high proportion, for example.
Regards Vit
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