Treatment of wastewater from the potato chips and snacks manufacturing industry

A small industrial effluent treatment plant has been designed and installed for the treatment of wastewater from a potato chips and snacks factory. The total daily flow rate to the plant was 115 m3/d, while the influent COD mass flux was 838.7 kg/d and the BOD mass flux was 626.7 kg/d. The applied method of treatment is a simple upflow anaerobic reactor with internal settling and gas collection units, followed by aerobic treatment based on the activated sludge process with diffused air system. The quality of the treated water is better than requested and the overall treatment process efficiencies are 99.2% for COD removal and 99.5% for BOD5 removal. The results of the operation of the plant during the first five months are examined and described in this paper.