Performance evaluation of aerobic reactor and Sarcocornia perennis to reduce the COD and chloride of effluents from tanning sheepskins

CORTIZO LORENA; SCELSIO NATALIA; PEROTTI SERGIO; MARTEGANI JOSE; LOPEZ LAURA M.I.

International Journal of Environment and Health

Interscience Publishers

Lugar: Ginebra; Año: 2017 vol. 8

1743-4955

Tannery is an industry that generates wastewater characterisedby high levels of organic matter, chrome, dissolved solids, sulphides and highsalinity. The aim of this work was to evaluate at laboratory scale, the decreaseof chemical oxygen demand (COD) and salinity from effluents from tanningsheepskins, using physical chemical methods in primary treatment, andbioreactor and wetlands for secondary and tertiary treatment, respectively.Effluents were collected from tanning processes of sheepskins carried out onthe Center of Research and Technology on leather tannery plant, La Plata,Argentina. Conventional primary treatments selecting coagulants andflocculants were employed. For secondary treatment, batch bioreactors weredesigned, and the maximum COD removal was 60?70%. For the tertiarytreatment, wetlands at laboratory scale were employed. In this test wetlandswere filled with granite stone, with and without the plant Sarcocornia perennis,and COD decreased on average by 64% additional and chlorides concentrationdecreased by around 15%.