Combined Treatment of Mezcal Vinasses by Ozonation and Activated Sludge

Abstract

In Mexico, mezcal production generates huge amounts of vinasses (MV) that cause negative environmental impacts. Thus, MV treatment is necessary before discharge to water bodies. Although there is no information for mezcal vinasses, similar effluents have been treated by biological processes (i.e. anaerobic and aerobic) usually complemented by oxidative chemical pretreatments (ozonation) and physico-chemical methods. In this work MV were first ozonated and followed by batch aerobic biological degradation. In the ozonation stage, organic matter removals were 4.5-11 % as COD, whereas the removal of aromatic compounds and phenols were 16-32 % and 48-83 % respectively. In the aerobic post-treatment, COD depletions up to 85 % were achieved; removals in ozone pre-treated vinasses were higher (80 to 85 %) than that of raw vinasse (69 %). It seems that ozonation preferentially attacked the recalcitrant fraction of organic matter present in the vinasses and increased its aerobic biodegradability.

Evaluation of Opuntia ficus-indica potential as a natural coadjuvant for vinasse treatment

“…A low DO content (0.16 to 0.23 mg/L) was due to samples being taken in the underground storage pit and the fact that the vinasse came from an anaerobic process. As is characteristic of this type of effluent, a low pH (3.94) (Cruz-Salomón et al 2017;Robles-González et al 2018;García-Becerra et al 2019), similar values of EC (2.08 to 4.20 mS/cm) to those reported by Robles-González et al (2018), high organic load, however lower than those reported by Robles-González et al (2018) and García-Becerra et al (2019) for mezcal and tequila vinasses, respectively, were observed. There were more than 2 times higher TS than those reported in other studies for mezcal vinasse (García-Becerra et al 2019).…”

Contribution of Using Filter Cake and Vinasse as a Source of Nutrients for Sustainable Agriculture—A Review

“…Energy losses in all evaluated growing areas could provide electricity to process at least 80% of the biorefinery's daily milling capacity. However, the gains in soil fertility did not compensate for the losses in environmental quality when in natura vinasse was applied [107].…”

Biohydrogen, Volatile Fatty Acids, and Biomethane from Mezcal Vinasses—A Dark Fermentation Process Evaluation

“…For the treatment of these types of vinasses, as well as similar ones, various biological and physicochemical treatments have been evaluated at the laboratory level: Retes-Pruneda [2] obtained organic matter (OM) removal efficiencies of 92.5% for COD, with a hybrid treatment system consisting of a flocculation stage with alginates and a fungal treatment; Robles-González et al [4] reached removal efficiencies of 85% for OM, 83% for phenols, and 32% for aromatic compounds with a combined treatment of ozonation and activated sludge. Meanwhile, for residues similar to tequila vinasses, anaerobic processes with average OM removal efficiencies that exceed 70% of the influent COD have been reported [5].…”