تصفیه بیولوژیکی فاضلاب کارخانه با به کارگیری فناوری کرم خاکی Biological treatment of distillery wastewater by application of the vermifiltration technology

1. Introduction The distillery industry generates a lot of wastewater from its processing and most distilleries end up disposing their untreated effluent into water bodies causing environmental threats to aquatic life due to high levels of biological contaminants (Shivajirao, 2012). Several low cost technologies have been investigated for potential use in distillery effluent treatment which includes biological, chemical and thermal treatment methods and these technologies have a shortfall one way or the other. There is need to look onto affordable and easy to use technologies such as the vermifiltration process, a low cost and easy to use technology. During vermifiltration, earthworms are used as the biological filtration media for removal of bio contaminants in wastewater that result in high total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS) and the chemical oxygen demand (COD). Studies conducted on the application of the vermifiltration technology in wastewater treatment has reported a noted decline in the TKN, BOD, TDS, TSS and COD concentrations over given periods of time with reductions ranging between 70 and 90% (Anusha and Sundar, 2015). Popular earthworms that have been applied in the vermifiltration technology include Eisenia Fetida and Perionyx Excavates (Rajpal et al., 2011). Fig. 1 shows a summary of how the vermifiltration technology is implemented in wastewater treatment as well as the end products such as a clean effluent and vermicompost, a bio fertilizer that can be realized from the process. During the vermifiltration process, the earthworms also act as a biological filter enhancing the biological treatment of wastewater (Sinha et al., 2008). This study investigated the potential of applying the vermifiltration technology in the treatment of distillery wastewater in a bid to ease downstream contamination from the distillery industries.