Application of aerobic treatment to saline wastewater
It has been observed that high salinity can strongly inhibit the
aerobic biological treatment of wastewater. However, in the
1940s, the follow-up of an activated sludge effluent treatment
plant functioning with seawater showed that the efficiency of
aerobic treatment was similar to that of a plant operating
with fresh water (Pillai and Rajagopalan, 1948). The interest in
the aerobic halophilic degradation of synthetic substrates has
been increasing rapidly since the middle of the 1990s, as can
be seen in Table 1. It can be seen from this table that the
salinity of the effluents treated aerobically ranges from 10 to
150 g l1. In addition, most of the studies were based on
synthetic wastewater that generally underwent treatment at
a higher organic loading rate (OLR) and F:M ratio than
industrial wastewater.