A Discussion Paper on Challenges and Proposals for Advanced Treatments for Potabilization of Wastewater in the Food Industry

Abstract

There are many studies and reviews on advanced processes to treat secondary wastewater from industries which also address the challenges and limitations to water reuse and the hygienic concerns especially in food industries. However, the challenges associated with treating a secondary wastewater to provide drinking water quality become clear when real wastewater is treated in batch and in pilot scale. The limitations are several, particularly in food industries. Hence, this review aims to present an overview and a discussion regarding the challenges and proposals related to the advanced treatment of food industry wastewater to provide drinking water quality, elucidating some experimental and theoretical questions surrounding such processes. Valuable experimental advice which is not usually found in research papers will be provided, for instance, which oxidation treatment should be chosen, which initial experiments should be carried, and which methodology should be followed to evaluate the kinetics constants in different situations will be provided, along with methodology issues.