Desalination 253 (2010) 158163

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Desalination
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d e s a l

Treatment of high strength wastewater from fruit juice industry using integrated
anaerobic/aerobic system
Hala El-Kamah a, Ahmed Tawk a, Mohamed Mahmoud a,, Hisham Abdel-Halim b
a
Water Pollution Research Department, National Research Centre, Cairo, Egypt
b
Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This work aimed to study the treatment of wastewater generated from fruit juice industry (2430 m3/batch).
Received 23 September 2009 Three treatment schemes have been investigated. The rst treatment scheme was a batch activated sludge
Received in revised form 9 November 2009 (AS) system and was operated at different aeration time up to 48 h. The second scheme was two-stage up-
Accepted 10 November 2009
ow anaerobic sponge reactors (UASRs). Two-stage UASRs were operated at a total hydraulic retention time
Available online 5 December 2009
(HRT) of 13 h corresponding to an organic loading rate (OLR) of 8.7 kg COD/m3 d. While, the third treatment
scheme consisted of a two-stage UASR followed by an AS system which was operated at three different HRTs
Keywords:
Fruit juice industry
namely 10, 12, and 14 h.
UASR Long term experiments indicated the superiority of the third treatment scheme which operated at a total
Activated sludge process HRT of 23 h (UASRs: 13 h and AS: 10 h) in terms of chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen
Agricultural reuse demand (BOD5), total suspended solids (TSS) and oil & grease removal. The integrated system achieved an
overall removal efciency of 97.5% for COD, 99.2% for BOD5, 94.5% for TSS and 98.9% for oil & grease. The
treated wastewater produced from the UASRAS system complied with the standards set by the Egyptian
law regulating the reuse of treated wastewater in agricultural purposes.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Food-processing industries in Egypt are under increasing pressure
to reduce the impact of their wastewater streams on the environment.
The production of large volumes of untreated wastewater can thus
become a very serious nancial burden. Most of the wastewater
generated from food industries is highly contaminated with organic
matter, dissolved solids, suspended solids and oil & grease [1].
Wastewater must be properly treated to the degree necessary to
comply with the regulatory standards for discharge into surface water
or reuse for agricultural application [2,3].
Anaerobic digestion technology has been applied for treatment of a
wide variety of industrial wastewaters with high organic matter
content, including dairy wastewater [4], cheese whey wastewater [5],
distillery spent wash water [6], starch wastewater [7], and slaughter-
house wastewater [8]. The up-ow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor
technology is considered a breakthrough in the development and
application of anaerobic high-rate technology for industrial wastewater
especially for wastewaters coming from food-processing industries [9].
Problems with the UASB reactor treating wastewater result from
washout of biomass which deteriorates the efuent quality [10]. In the
anaerobic biolm reactors, the support medium acts as a physical pro-
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: + 20 2 33351573.
E-mail addresses: dr.hala_elkamah@hotmail.com (H. El-Kamah),
mohamed_mahmoud_84@yahoo.com (M. Mahmoud).
tective factor against washout, thus being potentially attractive for
biomass retention in the reactor. El-Gohary et al. [11] compared
between classical UASB and anaerobic hybrid reactor (AHR) for the
treatment of pre-treated catalytically oxidized olive mill wastewater
(OMW) at an HRT of 24 h and an OLR of 2 kg COD/m3 d. After reaching
the steady state, the AHR removed 64% of the COD which was higher by
14% than that obtained in the UASB reactor.
In this study, the polyurethane foam was used as packing media and
randomly distributed in anaerobic reactors to: (i) improve the solids
microbial contact, and even the contact between the solids and the extra-
cellular enzymes, (ii) overcome washout of suspended solids, (iii) en-
hance hydrolysis of the particulate organic matter, (iv) increase the sludge
residence time (SRT), and reduces the applied hydraulic retention time.
However, the efuent of the anaerobic reactors generally does not
comply with standards for discharge into receiving water bodies.
Therefore, post-treatment is required. Malaspina et al. [12] investigated
the integrated system consisting of down-owup-ow hybrid reactor
(DUHR) followed by sequencing batch reactor (SBR) as post-treatment
system for treatment of dairy wastewater. The whole system achieved
more than 90% removal of COD, nitrogen and phosphorus. In another
study, Wahaab and El-Awady [13] investigated the feasibility of using
rotating biological contactors (RBC) as post-treatment system for
treatment of pre-anaerobically meat processing wastewater. RBC was
operated at an OLR of 0.288 kg BOD5/m2 d. RBC system achieved a
substantial reduction of COD, BOD5, TSS and oil & grease resulting efuent
quality with residual values of 132, 40, 44 and 10 mg/L, respectively.

0011-9164/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2009.11.013
 H. El-Kamah et al. / Desalination 253 (2010) 158163
This work presents a feasibility study for the treatment of wastewater
generated from fruit juice industry. The factory produces natural
concentrated syrups of different fruits (Apple, Orange, Cherry etc.).
Wastewater generated from the factory varied from 24 to 30 m3/batch.
Wastewater is characterized by high BOD5 and COD values representing
their high organic content. These efuents may cause serious problems,
in terms of organic load on the local sewerage system. Therefore, appro-
priate treatment is required prior to reuse treated efuent in irrigation
purposes [14]. So, the aim of this research work was to investigate a
simple, low-cost integrated system for treatment of high strength fruit
juice wastewater to produce treated wastewater complies with the
national regulatory standards for reuse in agricultural application.
2. Materials and methods
In this study, three treatment schemes have been designed and
manufactured. The rst scheme was an activated sludge (AS) system.
The second scheme was a two-stage up-ow anaerobic sponge reactor
(UASR). While, the third one was a two-stage UASR followed by an AS
system. The three schemes were located out-door and were operated
at a temperature of 25 C. A schematic block diagram of the experi-
mental layout is shown in Fig. 1.
2.1. The rst treatment scheme
The activated sludge (AS) system used in this experiment was a
batch scale complete mixed reactor model. The bioreactor system was
made from glass with a working volume of 2 L. The bioreactor was
initially inoculated with 1 L biomass. The used biomass (3.6 g VSS/L and
SVI of 62 mL/g TSS) was taken from a near-by full scale activated sludge
plant treating domestic wastewater (Zeneen, Cairo). AS system was
aerated through an air diffuser, under these conditions the dissolved
oxygen concentration in the reactor was kept between 2 and 3 mg/L. To
attain the acclimated state, the AS system was fed twice a day with a
mixture of domestic and industrial wastewater for 1 week. This was
followed by 2 weeks of operation using the raw industrial wastewater.
After reaching the acclimated state, the AS system was fed with 1 L of
raw wastewater and then 100 mL of the mixed liquor was taken from
the AS system at a different aeration time. The mixed liquor was allowed
to settle for 1 h, and then the supernatant was withdrawn and analyzed
to determine the optimum contact time from COD removal standpoint.
This experiment was repeated six times.
2.2. The second treatment scheme
This experiment was carried out using a two-identical-stage UASR.
UASRs were manufactured from PVC and were connected in series.
Each UASR (5 L) consisted of a cylindrical column with a conical
Fig. 1. Schematic block diagram of the proposed treatment schemes.
159
shaped bottom and gas solid separator (GSS). The UASR had a height
of 70 cm, and an internal diameter of 10 cm (Fig. 2).
Each reactor was seeded with sludge obtained from the pilot plant
anaerobic hybrid reactor treating municipal wastewater [15]. The
sludge had a concentration of 22 g/L for total solids at 105 C, 13.6 g/L
for volatile solids at 550 C and 44.5 mL/gTS for SVI. The total amount
of sludge added to the reactor was approximately 2 L which
represented 40% of the total reactor volume.
The oating polyurethane foam was used as packing media and was
randomly distributed in the anaerobic reactors. The dimensions of the
used sponge (cylindrical shape) amounted to 27 mm in height 22 mm
in diameter. The polyurethane material used in this study was
supported by a polypropylene plastic material with ns. The sponge
characteristics parameters were surface area (256 m2/m3), density
(30 kg/m3), void ratio (0.9), and pore size (0.63 mm). The total amount
of sponge added to the reactor was approximately 1.5 L.
The UASRs were operated at a total HRT of 13 h, throughout the
study. OLR's varied from 5.49 to 15.5 kg COD/m3 d with an average value
of 8.7 kg COD/m3 d. During start-up, the reactor was operated at 25 C
with a total HRT of 24 h to allow sludge adaptation to fruit juice
wastewater. Afterwards, the HRT was gradually shortened with the
corresponding increase in organic load to reach the desired HRT (13 h).
For calculating the SRT of the UASRs, it is assumed that the efuent
VSS had the same SRT as the excess sludge. The SRT of the UASRs were
calculated according to Eq. (1).
V X
SRT = 1
Qw Xw + Q Xe
where V is the reactor volume (L), X is the average sludge concentration
in the reactor (g VSS/L), Q w is the excess sludge (L/d), Xw is the con-
centration of the excess sludge (g VSS/L), Q is the wastewater ow rate
(L/d), and Xe is VSS concentration in the efuent (g VSS/L).
2.3. The third treatment scheme
The UASRs efuent (pre-treated efuent) was subjected directly into
an activated sludge system as post-treatment step. To attain the accli-
mated state, the AS system was fed twice a day with a mixture of
domestic and industrial wastewater for 1 week. After reaching the accli-
mated state, the AS system was fed continuously with the anaerobic ef-
uent and was operated at three different HRTs namely, 10, 12 and 14 h.
2.4. Fruit juice wastewater
The end of pipe efuent used in this study was collected from a fruit
juice factory. The wastewater that was generated from the factory
varied from 24 to 30 m3/batch. Wastewater was mainly produced from
production lines, equipments and oor cleaning operations. Fruit juice
wastewater contains a relatively high biodegradable organic matter
(BOD5/COD ratio = 0.61). The pH of the raw wastewater was slightly
acidic. So, to provide buffering capacity, 1.52 mol of bicarbonate was
added to ensure that the wastewater pH did not drop below 7.4 [16,17].
2.5. Sample collection and analysis
The performance of the treatment schemes was monitored by im-
plementing an extensive sampling and analysis program. Samples from
inuent and efuent of each treatment step were collected for analy-
ses. The analyses covered: pH-value, chemical oxygen demand (COD),
biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), total suspended solids (TSS), total
kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), total phosphorous (Total-P), sulfate, hydrogen
sulde and oil & grease. The raw sample was used for COD and BOD5, and
a 0.45 m membrane ltered the samples for soluble COD and BOD5,
respectively. The particulate COD and BOD5 were calculated by the
160 H. El-Kamah et al. / Desalination 253 (2010) 158163

Fig. 2. Two-stage up-ow anaerobic sponge reactors (UASRs).

difference between COD and CODsoluble, and BOD5 and BOD5 soluble,
respectively.
Moreover, sludge characteristics including: sludge volume, total
solids, volatile solids and sludge volume index were also carried out.
All analyses were carried out according to APHA [18].
2.6. Kinetics modeling
The kinetics modeling used in this study was based on basic Monod
model. Two limiting cases of the Monod model were considered.
2.6.1. Zero order model
In the cases of constant biomass concentrations with low biomass
change, i.e., X X0, and high substrate concentration (S Ks),
Monod equation can be reduced to a zero order reaction [19]:
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Wastewater characteristics
The characteristics of the investigated wastewater are presented in
(Table 1). Available data indicates great uctuations in the strength of
the wastewater during the study period; this could be due to
variations in the production processes. COD varied from 2280 to
10,913 mg/L with an average value of 5157 mg/L. Corresponding
BOD5 varied from 1650 to 6900 mg/L with an average concentration
of 3134 mg/L. The average TSS and oil & grease concentrations were
323 mg/L and 74 mg/L, respectively.
3.2. Treatment schemes

dS 3.2.1. The rst treatment scheme

= kX : 2 The temporal variation of COD in the batch scale operated with
dt
fruit juice wastewater at initial substrate to microorganism ratio of
Therefore, the kinetics constants kX can be measured by zero 1.11 mg COD/mg VSS is depicted in Fig. 3. As apparent from Fig. 3, COD
order linear regression using substrate S versus time plot, with the removal was accomplished within 30 h, and no further reduction in
slope being equal to the product of k and X. Thus k is the slope of
the zero order coefcient versus biomass concentration (X). Table 1
Mean characteristics of the fruit juice wastewater.
2.6.2. First order model
Parameters Unit Min Max. Average
On the other hand, based on the same constant biomass concentra-
tion condition, with Ks S, Monod equation can be simplied to a rst pH-value 5.4 8
COD mg/L 2280 10,913 5157 2897
order reaction: CODsoluble mg/L 1900 2875 2429 401
BOD5 mg/L 1650 6900 3134 1546
dS kXS
= 3 BOD5 soluble mg/L 1080 1620 1289 261
dt Ks TSS (105 C) mg/L 118 1534.0 323 349
VSS (550 C) mg/L 14 580 183 152.4
Therefore, the rst order biodegradation kinetics coefcient kX/Ks TDS (105 C) mg/L 2304 17,918 5483 3941
can be determined from ln(S /S0) versus time plot. The slope of the rst TKN mg/L 38.0 252 58.2 59
order biodegradation coefcient versus biomass is thus k /Ks. Total phosphorous mg/L 4.6 20.8 10.2 5.3
Oil & grease mg/L 18.0 717.8 74 180
Sulfate mg/L 72 214 144.3 59
2.7. Engineering studies Hydrogen sulde mg/L 0.0 20.0 10.7 9
Iron mg/L 0.1 4.4 1.03 1.5
Based on the results of treatability study, engineering design Chloride mg/L 80 1000 260 271
related to nal recommendations was carried out. Preparation of An average of 20 samples.
preliminary cost estimation for the suggested scheme was conducted. Oil & grease and all extractable matter by chloroform.
 H. El-Kamah et al. / Desalination 253 (2010) 158163
Fig. 3. COD batch removal kinetics.
COD was observed after that, with the steady state COD stabilizing at
3050 mg/L. Furthermore, the results of this test clearly show that
COD removal efciencies ranged from 10 to 99.5% with about 1% of the
initial COD was non-biodegradable even after 30 h of treatment. This
is to be excepted since any organic loading above the maximum
microbial uptake will be untreated.
As elaborated upon earlier, both limiting cases of the Monod model
i.e., zero order and rst order kinetics were investigated. A summary
of the zero order and rst order coefcients for the various batches is
listed in Table 2 together with the various correlation coefcients.
Fig. 4 illustrates graphically the t of the data from the batch AS
system to the rst order kinetic model. It is apparent from the data
that the rst order kinetic model t the data well; with an R2 value of
0.921 from the rst order kinetics. The reasonably good t of the data
to the rst order model approximations may be explained by a
varying biomass concentration or prevalence of wide values in
substrate concentrations within the vicinity of this Ks value in any
given batch.
The results presents in Fig. 5 show that by increasing HRT from 28
to 30 h, the COD, BOD5 and TSS concentrations in the nal efuent
signicantly dropped from 175 to 30, 38 to 8 and 82 to 36 mg/L,
respectively. However, further removal of COD and BOD5 did not
occur by increasing the HRT to 48 h. On the other hand, TSS
concentrations in the nal efuent signicantly dropped from 36 to
5 mg/L by increasing HRT from 30 to 48 h to produce efuent with
quality complying with the national allowable limits which regulate
the reuse of treated wastewater in agricultural purposes
(COD = 80 mg/L, BOD5 = 60 mg/L and TSS = 50 mg/L). This excellent
performance towards the removal of organic matter can be attributed
to the high active biomass present in the system. Moreover, the
results also clearly demonstrate that the activated sludge system can
produce an efuent quality containing low concentration of TSS. The
suspended matter could be adsorbed on and/or enmeshed into the
biomass and then hydrolyzed by extra-cellular enzymes [12].
Sludge analyses showed that, the sludge volume index ranged
from 50 to 83 mL/gTS which gives an indication for the good settle
ability of sludge. Microscopic examination of the sludge indicated the
presence of many colonies of protozoa, especially stalked ciliates such
as Vorticella, Opercularia and Rotatoria (not shown).
3.2.2. The second treatment scheme
The two-stage UASRs were operated at a total constant HRT of
13 h, throughout the study. OLR's varied from 5.49 to 15.5 kg COD/
m3 d with an average value of 8.7 kg COD/m3 d due to a change in the
Table 2
Kinetics of zero order and rst order modeling.
Batch Zero order kinetics First order kinetics
k (kX) (mg/L d) R2 K (kX / Ks) (L/d)
Fruit juice wastewater 1657.75 0.6297 2.764
161
Fig. 4. Zero order COD removal kinetics (a); rst order COD removal kinetics (b).
inuent composition. Despite variations in OLR, the reactors provided
efuent quality of around 2033 mg/L for COD, and 910 mg/L for BOD5
corresponding to the percentage removal values of 61 and 70%,
respectively (Fig. 6a). Also the results clearly show that, a substantial
reduction of TSS was achieved resulting in an average percentage
removal of 69%. This indicates the high efciency of the UASRs for the
removal of suspended solids at a relatively high suspended solids
loading rate of 0.8 kg TSS/m3 d. This relatively good performance
could be attributed to the long sludge residence time (SRT = 76 d)
which would effectively increase the efciency of hydrolysis and
subsequent digestion of organic matter.
In this investigation, COD removal was lower than that previously re-
ported for UASB reactor treating cheese production wastewater at a lower
OLR (1.51.9 kg COD/m3 d) and substantially longer HRT (3040 h) [20]
and also lower than those obtained from the UASB reactor treating dairy
wastewater at an OLR ranging from 2.4 to 13.5 kg COD/m3 d and shorter
HRT of 3 h. The COD removal ranged from 61 to 95.6% [4].
The adsorption phenomena play an important role for COD and TSS
removal which occurs in anaerobic treatment of complex fat containing
efuents, it is acceptable to assume that in an anaerobic reactor, the
sludge bed acts as a lter retaining the organic matter which leads to
the growth of sludge [21]. Once the storage capacity is exhausted,
unintentional washout of the sludge together with the efuent takes
place. This indicates that the sludge bed of the anaerobic reactor had
lost its adsorption or retention capacity originating a breakthrough
phenomenon similar to that common in an adsorption column. In this
study, the washout of biomass did not occur; this was due to the use of
oating polyurethane foam at the top portion of the reactor.
R2
0.921
Fig. 5. AS system's performance for fruit juice wastewater treatment at different HRTs.
162 H. El-Kamah et al. / Desalination 253 (2010) 158163

increased. The residual values in the AS efuent at HRT of 14, 12 and

10 h were 21, 50 and 65 mg/L for COD; 10, 10 and 16 mg/L for BOD5
and 3, 5 and 15 mg/L for TSS, respectively (Fig. 7a). The results
presented in Fig. 7b show no signicant improvement in the removal
efciency of Total-P and TKN by increasing the HRT.
These results are comparable to the results obtained by Malaspina
et al. [12] who used a sequencing batch reactor for treatment of the
anaerobic down-owup-ow hybrid reactor efuent and activated
sludge system treating the anaerobic reactor efuent [25]. Over 90% of
COD was removed at a sludge age of 20 days.
Consequently, residual values of the pollution parameters in the
nal efuent of the anaerobicaerobic system complied with the
national allowable limit which regulates the reuse of wastewater for
irrigation purposes.

3.3. Cost estimation of the proposed wastewater treatment plant

In most developing countries, industrial wastewater treatment

Fig. 6. Concentrations of COD, BOD5 and TSS (a); TKN, Total-P and oil &grease (b) in fruit
juice wastewater and UASRs efuent.
Residual total phosphorous, TKN and oil &grease in the treated ef-
uent were 9.1, 28.4 and 21.6 mg/L corresponding to average percentage
removal of 11, 51 and 70%, respectively (Fig. 6b). Apparently, the removal
of phosphorous and nitrogen was due to precipitation, while the removal
of oil and grease was due to entrapment/adsorption to the sludge bed of
the UASB reactor [22].
The characteristics of the retained and excess sludge from the two-
stage UASRs are presented in Table 3. The VS/TS ratio of wasted sludge
was 0.66 which indicates that the wasted sludge was almost
stabilized. The mean value of the net sludge yield coefcient was
found to be 0.2 g VSS/g COD removed per day, corresponding to 20% of
the total inuent COD. This is a very important feature of the UASR,
since it is signicantly lower than that normally found in conventional
aerobic systems. Sludge production in the UASRs may be attributed to
occulation of non-biodegradable particulate matter, forming the
inert sludge mass fraction and the biological sludge mass that is
generated as a result of anaerobic conversion in the UASR [23,24].
and disposal is a matter of concern that needs to be addressed. The
prospects for economic and social development, poverty and
priorities for industrial investments are the main obstacles in making
decisions about wastewater facilities. Since nancing, constructing,
operation and maintenance of wastewater treatment plants are quite
costly, most developing countries [26] including Egypt, avoid these
projects.
Based on the above results, the preliminary cost estimation for a
fruit juice wastewater treatment plant was conducted. Fig. 8 shows
the schematic diagram of the proposed system, which consists of:
two-stage UASRs as pre-treatment step followed by an AS step. The
xed capital cost was 1,554,000 LE. The values shown are based on the
available market prices of 2009 for similar works. The work shall
comprise supply of all materials, construction of civil work, and supply
and erection of all mechanical and electrical equipments. While the
annual operation and maintenance (O&M) cost including electrical
energy cost, labor cost, insurance cost... etc. was 100,000 LE.
4. Conclusion and recommendation
In this study, three treatment schemes have been manufactured
and studied for the treatment of fruit juice wastewater. The rst

3.2.3. The third treatment scheme

The efuent quality of the anaerobic step does not meet the standards
set regulating the reuse of treated wastewater in agricultural purposes.
Therefore, the activated sludge system has been investigated as a post-
treatment for the UASRs efuent. The AS system was operated at three
different HRTs namely, 10, 12 and 14 h.
The obtained results show that by increasing the HRT from 10 to
14 h the removal efciency of COD, BOD5 and TSS in the AS system

Table 3
Characteristics of the retained and excess sludge from UASRs.

Parameters Unit Retained sludge Excess sludge

Sludge volume mL/L 980 142 55 23

Total solids at 105 C g/L 28 12 0.6 0.2
Volatile solids at 105 C g/L 18 9 0.4 0.15
VS/TS 0.64 0.18 0.66 0.2
Sludge volume index (SVI) mL/g TSS 35 12 91.6 23
Sludge production g VSS/d 2.0 0.8
Sludge yield coefcient g VSS/g COD removedd 0.2
Fig. 7. Concentrations of COD, BOD5 and TSS (a); TKN and Total-P (b) Concentrations of
Sludge residence time (SRT) d 76
TKN and Total-P in AS efuent treating UASRs efuent.
 H. El-Kamah et al. / Desalination 253 (2010) 158163
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the proposed treatment system.
scheme consists of an AS system. The second scheme is a two-stage
UASR. While, the third one is a two-stage UASR as a pre-treatment
followed by an AS system. Based on the available results, the following
conclusions were drawn:
(1) The two-stage UASR is an efcient technique for the pre-
treatment of fruit juice wastewater at an HRT of 13 h. The
reactor achieved percentage removal values of 61% for COD,
70% for BOD5, 69% for TSS, 51% for TKN, 11% for Total-P and 70%
for oil & grease.
(2) The wasted sludge from the UASR reactor was almost stabilized
(VS/TS ratio = 0.66). The sludge yield coefcient was around
0.2 g VSS/g COD totally removed per day, corresponding to 20%
of the total inuent COD. Moreover, the use of polyurethane
foam as a packing media sheets overcome the washout out of
biomass which occur in a classical UASB reactor.
(3) The combination of the two-stage UASR and the AS system
represents a very promising option for the treatment of juice
industry wastewater. The combined system achieved an
average removal efciency of 97.5% for COD, 99.2% for BOD5,
94.5% for TSS and 98.9% for oil & grease. The efuent quality of
the integrated anaerobic/aerobic system complies with the
national allowable standards required for reuse in agricultural
purposes.
(4) Accordingly, the proposed system can thus be recommended as
a techno-economically feasible fruit juice wastewater treat-
ment system.
Acknowledgements
The technical support provided by K. Abdel Wahad, F. Rifaat,
H. Hegazy and A. Nasr is gratefully acknowledged.
163
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