Aerobic Treatability of Waste Effluent from the Leather Finishing Industry

摘要

The Seton Company supplies finished leather products exclusively for theautomotive industry. In the process of finishing leather, two types of wastewaters are generated. The majority of the wastewater is composed of water-based paint residuals while the remainder is composed of solvent-based coating residuals. Aerobic treatability studies were conducted using water-based and solvent-based waste recirculatory waters from the Seton Company's Saxton, Pennsylvania processing plant. The specific objective was to determine the potential for using aerobic biological processes to biodegrade the industry's wastes and determine the potential for joint treatment at the local publicly owned treatment works (POTW). This study was accomplished in two phases. Phase I was conducted during the Spring Semester 1993 and consisted of aerobic respirometer tests of the raw wastes and mass balance analysis. The results of Phase I were published in a report to the Seton Company as Environmental Resources Research Institute project number 92C.II40R-1. Phase II was conducted during the Summer Semester 1993 and consisted of bench-scale reactor tests and additional aerobic respirometer tests. The aerobic respirometer batch tests and bench-scale reactor tests were used to assess the treatability of solvent-based and water-based wastewaters and determine the degree of biodegradability of the wastewaters. Mass balance calculations were made using measured characteristics.