The Use of Pure Oxygen for the Biological
Treatment of Brewery Waste Waters
WILLIAM J. JEWELL, Assistant Professor
Civil Engineering Department
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
W. WESLEY ECKENFELDER, Jr., Distinguished Professor
MICHAEL E. CAVALIER, Graduate Student
Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee
INTRODUCTION
The use of commercial oxygen in aerboic biological wastewater treatment
processes has recently received increasing attention. It has been predicted that by
1980 oxygen will be used in processes treating a quantity of wastewater equivalent to
that generated by half the population of the United States (1). Some of the reported
advantages of oxygen aeration in activated sludge are 1) increased bacterial activity,
2) decreased aeration tank volume, 3) decreased sludge yield, and 4) increased
settleability of the sludge (1,2, 3). However, most studies used domestic sewage as
the substrate and were therefore restricted to a relatively narrow range of operating
variables.
Brewery wastewaters are typically highly contaminated with soluble organics,
are low in nutrients, have high temperatures; and all these parameters are extremely
variable. Because of the high concentration of soluble organic matter it is also true
that there are few non-biological unit process which constitute feasible treatment
alternatives. For the above reasons it was decided to investigate the potential use of
high purity oxygen in activated sludge treatment of brewery wastewaters.
The data in this study were obtained from experiments conducted over an
extremely wide range of operating variables. The general objective of the study was
to obtain practical operational data to be used in the design of facilities for the
treatment of wastewaters from one of the Nation's largest breweries.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A maximum of eight completely mixed continuously fed activated sludge units
were operated simultaneously. The temperature of the units was 30 ± 3 C; and the
volume of the individual aeration tanks varied between 2 and 170 liters, with the
majority having a volume of 8 liters. The 8 liter units were constructed with a sliding
baffle between the overflow weir and the aeration tank that allowed continuous
recycle of the sludge (4).
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