The Aerobic Biodegradation Kinetics of Plant Tanninsin Industrial Wastewater

M. Tramšek, A. Goršek and P. Glavič

Abstract
This paper describes an experimental determination of the biodegradation rate for tannins present in industrial wastewater, after the extraction of chestnut chips. Experiments were performed in a laboratory aerobic reactor (Armfield) by using biomass from an existing industrial wastewater treatment plant. The outlet tannins concentration wasdetermined under various processing conditions. Simultaneously, an optical microscope was used to monitor the mix of microbiological cultures in the biomass. On the basis of data obtained in experiments, non-linear regression was used to perform parametric analysis of various kinetic models, which took into account inhibition, as quoted in literature (Haldane, Edwards, Aiba, Luong). The statistical analysis, based on the P-criterion, F-criterion, adjusted coefficient of determination, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and root mean squared error, showed that the biodegradation of plant tannins in industrial wastewater under selected conditions for aerobic digestion, can be most successfully described statistically by the Aiba's kinetic model.

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Keywords
plant material, substrate inhibition, kinetic models, statistic analysis, aerobic industrial wastewater digestion