Caracterización fisicoquímica y microbiológica de aguas mieles del beneficio del café

摘要

In the coffee processing, only 5 % of the fresh product is used and waste is generated as wastewater (WW), which can reach up to 40 L / Kg of dry parchment coffee and when spilled can cause pollution of high environmental impact. Consequently, the objective was to characterize physicochemical and microbiologically two WW samples (M1, M2) in order to evaluate the potential in the extraction of biocomponents. The parameters measured to the two water samples were Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), nitrogen, ammonium, chromium, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, conductivity, volatile acidity, phosphorus, chlorides, solids, color and, in addition, mesophiles, total coliforms and staphylococci were also quantified. Significant differences between the samples and an effect of coffee processing on the characteristics evaluated were identified. M2 showed a higher concentration of OD, conductivity and color change with respect to the control, while M1 had a higher concentration for the other parameters.Chromium and ammonium were below the detection limit of the test used, on the contrary, the COD was higher than what was regulated for domestic waters. In the microbiological analysis, mesophiles were found in both samples, and M2 presented coliforms and staphylococci. With the above it is evident that the coffee processing method affects the parameters of wastewater quality and therefore treatment and/or exploitation methodologies must be implemented according to the intrinsic characteristics of each process.