Treatment of wine distillery wastewater by high rate anaerobic digestion

Wine distillery wastewaters (WDW) are acidic and have a high content of potential organic pollutants. This causes high chemical oxygen demand (COD) values. Polyphenols constitute a significant portion of this COD, and limit the efficiency of biological treatment of WDWs. WDW starting parameters were as follows: pH 3.83, 4,185 mg/l soluble COD (CODs) and 674.6 mg/l of phenols. During operation, amendments of CaCO3 and K2HPO4, individually or in combination, were required for buffering the digester