Co-Treatment of Winery and Domestic Wastewaters in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants: Analysis of Biodegradation Kinetics and Process Performance Impacts

Winery wastewater (WWW) handling strategies often include co-treatment at municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Despite this, definitive information regarding oxidation kinetics and process and performance impacts due to co-treatment is lacking. A combined Michaelis–Menten–University of Cape Town kinetic model has been found to best describe the pH-inhibited aerobic biological oxidation of WWW by heterotrophs in activated sludge from four municipal WWTPs. The specific rate of substrate consumption was highest in biomass that had been exposed to WWW (57.3 mg COD/g MLVSS·h) compared to biomass that had not (20.7 mg COD/g MLVSS·h). Bench-scale aerobic co-treatment trials confirm that sorption is a key removal mechanism, with up to 98% chemical oxygen demand and 97% total organic carbon removal after 6 h of reaction time. The WWW solids are quickly incorporated into the biological floc and may improve settleability at loading rates above 75 mg WWW suspended solids/L bioreactor volume at the expense of significantly increasing the observed yield. The aerobic-activated sludge system at municipal WWTPs can effectively co-treat WWW, provided the organic loading rates are limited and the WWTP is designed to accommodate the seasonal loadings of winery wastewater. The identified mitigation measures can be used by co-treating facilities to optimize the co-treatment performance of WWW along with domestic wastewater.