Resumen

RENNOLA, Leonardo; YEPEZ, Carlos; BULLON, Johnny  y  SALAZAR, Franklin. Treatment of destillery wastewaters using coagulants and membranes. Rev. Téc. Ing. Univ. Zulia [online]. 2007, vol.30, n.Especial, pp.11-19. ISSN 0254-0770.

The present work studies the feasibility to treat distillery wastewaters (vinasses) using the coagulants: polyaluminum chloride, anionic and cationic polyacrylamide, a mixture of them and an ultrafiltration membrane. The vinasse was characterized carrying out color and turbidity measures. The optimal coagulant and its dose were determined. The reduction in turbidity was found to be 0%, 35% and 70% when anionic, cationic polyacrylamide and polyaluminum chloride respectively were used; when mixing PAC with the cationic polyacrylamide, it was possible to obtain an additional 28% and 10% removal in turbidity and color respectively. Afterwards, the vinasse was filtered using an ultrafiltration process with a ceramic membrane of 0.005µm of pore diameter with and without coagulants. The results show a color and turbidity reduction of 70% and 90% respectively. When using coagulants the removal increased to 97%. It may be concluded that the efficiency of the coagulants used is low although its use together with an ultrafiltration membrane leads to satisfactory results.

Palabras clave : Wastewater; distillery; vinasses; coagulants; membrane.