Bioculture for Brewery Wastewater Treatment

Brewery Wastewater is rich in organic compounds which are generally readily biodegradable. The COD levels of brewery wastewater usually range from 2000 to 6000 mg/L, while the BOD ranges from 1200 to 3600 mg/L. The high ratios of BOD : COD indicates the high level of biodegradable compounds in brewery wastewater. Since, the organic load is very high, generic bacteria do not perform at expected levels. In order to degrade high organic load at rapid rate one must use aerobic bacteria with short doubling time with effective use of dissolved oxygen. Generic bacteria tend to turn the plant spetic and do little to retard growth of any filamentous microbes.

Due to the very nature of the production process itself, breweries are shock dischargers in terms of both volumes of wastewater and its COD/BOD levels. It is estimated that for every one litre of beer brewed, around ten litres of water is used up. Most of this water ends up in the wastewater stream. High volumes of effluent combined with high COD and BOD levels in brewery wastewater make it imperative to use specialized high growth biocultures.

Here one of our clients in Maharashtra successfully applied aerobic bacteria in Evobac to rapidly reduce COD and BOD while making the wastewater treatment plant resistant to shockloads. With Evobac the sludge volume was very low and a also significant reduction in effluent colour was achieved.