These measures could be used to adapt the operating conditions
of the treatment reactor according to the characteristics of the
wastewater, which vary greatly according to the industrial activity
of interest (Sutherland-Stacey et al., 2009). Absorbance measurements
are complementary to fluorescence measurements because
not all pollutants fluoresce. In this study, we measured the changes
in the spectroscopic proprieties of wastewater during treatment by
activated sludge. Wastewater was collected from four cattle processing
plants. The results obtained in batch experiment studies
were applied to monitor the performance of a SBR. The results
show that the spectroscopic data are related to the biodegradation
state of the slaughterhouse wastewater and can be used as surrogates
for COD measurements.