Understanding the efficiency of different wastewater treatment technologies tested under real conditions is essential for successful decision making by engineers and managers. In this study, real poultry slaughterhouse wastewater coming from defeathering, cooling, and evisceration processes was treated using a lab-scale electrochemical process by use of iron-iron (Fe-Fe), iron-graphite (Fe-Gr) and aluminum-graphite (Al-Gr) electrode combinations. A water quality index (WQI) was developed and used as a tool for evaluating and classifying the effectiveness of different electrode combinations. The Al-Gr electrode combination showed an impressive performance achieving an “excellent” status for all of the three studied sources of wastewater with a WQI ranging from 13 to 34. The Fe-Gr electrode combination showed an “excellent” status performance for the wastewater from the cooling process as classified by the WQI and “good water” class for the defeathering and evisceration processes. The lower performance, which was highly affected by the increase in turbidity, was observed for the Fe-Fe electrode combination with a “poor water” status for the wastewater coming from defeathering and cooling processes and “good water” status for evisceration process.

The efficiency of a wastewater treatment process may be affected by several factors including the scale at which the system is operating. This study aimed at investigating the influence of scale on a poultry slaughterhouse wastewater treatment process. The process is comprised of several units including electrolysis, membrane filtration, and ultraviolet irradiation. The results of the industrial-scale wastewater treatment plant of the Izevski poultry farm slaughterhouse in Kazakhstan were compared with those of a lab-scale wastewater treatment process under the same conditions. The traditional and water quality index (WQI) approaches were used to present the results and the drinking water quality standards of Kazakhstan were used as a reference. The industrial and lab-scale plants showed high purification efficiency for most of the studied water quality parameters. The comparative analysis based on the WQI showed that the industrial-scale wastewater treatment plant outperforms the lab-scale wastewater treatment process.

Poultry slaughterhouse wastewater is characterized by high pollution strength, making its treatment before discharge or recycling of great importance. This study investigated the potential influence of mixing ratios on the treatability of poultry slaughterhouse wastewater under three different mixing ratios; 20:80, 50:50, and 80:20 of defeathering and cooling sources, respectively. Wastewater samples were collected from the Izhevski production corporate (PC) poultry farm located in the Akmola region, Kazakhstan. The lab-scale treatment plant, designed to simulate the industrial-scale treatment plant of the poultry farm, consists of electrolysis, membrane filtration, and ultraviolet disinfection as the main units. The general design purpose of the Izhevski PC treatment plant is to treat about 1.25 m3/h (51.72%) of the total wastewater generated from the defeathering and cooling sections of the slaughterhouse to a recyclable degree. Water quality indices (WQIs) were developed for each of the studied mixing ratios. A comparative analysis was also done with drinking water quality standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as the government of Kazakhstan. From the analysis results, the defeathering raw wastewater was generally higher in pollution strength than the cooling wastewater. It was also observed that the increase in the ratio of defeathering wastewater reduced treatment efficiency for some physicochemical parameters such as turbidity, total suspended solids (TSS), color, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), as well as chemical oxygen demand (COD). However, 100% removal efficiency was achieved for the microbial parameters for all the three studied ratios. Based on the computed WQIs, the highest-quality effluent was achieved from the 20:80 (defeathering:cooling) mixing ratio. However, with the fact that all the three mixing ratios produced “excellent” status, the 80:20 (defeathering:cooling) mixing ratio stands to be an ideal option. The selection of 80:20 mixing ratio has the potential to reduce the pollution load in the wastewater discharged to the sewerage system, while achieving high-quality effluent for recycling in the cooling processes of the slaughterhouse.

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