ORGANIC MATTER ABATEMENT IN OLIVE MILL EFFLUENTS: HETEROGENEOUS

PHOTOCATALYSIS OR HOMOGENEOUS FENTON OXIDATION?

J.M. Ochando-Pulido1
M.D. Vctor-Ortega 2
A. Martinez-Frez 3

ABSTRACT
Olive oil industry is actually one of the main engines of the economy of the Mediterranean
Basin countries. However, in order to succeed in a sustainable olive oil production process, the
treatment of olive mill effluents (OME) must be solved.
The presence of phytotoxic recalcitrant pollutants in these effluents inhibits the efficiency of
biological processes. Furthermore, as the physico-chemical composition of OME is extremely
variable, and also the facts of the small size and geographical dispersion of olive mills as well as
seasonality of olive oil production, implementation of cost-effective management processes
for these effluents is difficult. A centralized treatment seems not feasible currently, thus an
effective and simple solution is needed for these small plants.
Within this context, chemical remediation strategies have turned out as a feasible solution for
the depuration of these bio-refractory wastewaters. In this paper, the treatment of OME by
means of advanced oxidation processes, in particular photocatalysis with titanium dioxide
under UV irradiation (TiO2 UV-PC) and Fenton-like advanced oxidation (FL-AO), will be
addressed and compared. Upon the optimum operating parameters, the FL-AO process
ensured up to 92.6% organic pollutants abatement after 3 h residence time (), whereas 58.4%
was achieved by TiO2 UV-PC ( = 2h). However, one key aspect of is the recovery and reuse of
the catalyst, especially in case of catalytic treatments aimed for the reclamation of wastewater
streams, in which the low added-value of the treated effluent makes it imperative. In case of
homogeneous catalytic processes, this is even more difficult to achieve, whereas the novel self
lab-made TiO2 ferromagnetic-core photocatalyst developed in the framework of the European
project PHOTOMEM (Contract FP7-SME-2010-1 no. 262470) enhances its recovery back from
the wastewater stream by magnetic traps, enabling its reuse in successive batches and thus
enhancing the cost-effectiveness of the process.
Keywords: Advanced oxidation processes; Fenton reaction; Photocatalysis; Olive mill
wastewater; Wastewater reclamation.

J.M. Ochando-Pulido, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Granada, Spain, jmochandop@ugr.es

M.D. Vctor-Ortega, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Granada, Spain
3
A. Martnez-Frez, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Granada, Spain
2

Sustainable Development Symposium | 6th annual European postgraduate symposium | 1