Dynamic Post-treatment Response of Olive Mill Effluent Wastewater Using Activated Carbon

摘要

Olive mill effluent (OME) wastewater represents a serious environmental problem in the Mediterranean area. It has extremely high values of COD, BOD, and phenolic content. A new approach of treatment steps composed of settling, centrifugation, and filtration is suggested to be used to condition OME wastewater. The filtrate is then subjected to a post-treatment process, namely adsorption on activated carbon. The dynamic response of phenols concentration, pH, and COD, using different concentrations of activated carbon, shows a peak at which maximum adsorption capacity is achieved. The maximum adsorption capacity for the tested concentrations of activated carbon is reached in less than 4h. The maximum removal of phenols is about 94%, while it reaches about 83% for organic matter.