Distillery Wastewater Treatment System with Reverse Osmosis

The Present work deals with a study that involves examining the efficacy of introducing reverse osmosis (RO) process in distillery wastewater treatment as an alternative polishing treatment for the ultimate objective of planning zero discharge from ETP system. It specifically studies alternative systems viz., ferti-irrigation, biocomposting without RO and biocomposting with RO treatment system after anaerobic treatment for a distillery of capacity 120 KLD for comparing other alternatives in vague. The operating costs for ferti-irrigation, biocomposting without RO and biocomposting with RO treatment system for distillery of capacity 120 KLD are calculated and compared. The operating cost per m3 of effluent for aerobic treatment followed by ferti-irrigation is 98 to 113 Rs./m3 of effluent, for RO system is approximately 29 Rs./m3 of effluent, for biocomposting is 99.00 Rs./m3 of effluent and therefore, for RO plus biocomposting it is approximately 128 Rs./m3 for getting zero discharge. On the whole, this study brings out that reverse osmosis could be optimally employed for achieving zero discharge for ensuring environmental regulations for distillery industry.