Olive Oil Mill Wastewater Treatment in a Bubble Column Sequencing Batch Reactor.

Olive Oil Mill Wastewater (OOMW) is one of the most relevant environmental problem, due to the high organic load, the high concentration of polyphenolic compounds (which are toxic for bacterial biomass) and the low pH values (usally ranging from 4 and 5.5). Fungal biomass seemed to be particularly suitable to perform the biological treatment process of this wastewater as it can grow at very low pH values and tolerate and metabolize polyphenolic compounds. Thus, Trichoderma viride (a filamentous fungus) biomass was non-aseptically inoculated in a bubble column reactor (9 l working voume), that in the beginning was filled with a glucose solution in which a 10% of OOMW was present, in order to simultaneously allow biomass growth and to provide a prior acclimatization. Later on, the system was managed as a continuos reactor with a HRT of 1.8 d. A 35% COD and a polyphenols 30% removal were averagely observed within the effluent.