Treatment of Rubber Processing Wastewater by Effective Microorganisms Using Anaerobic Sequencing Batch Reactor

The rubber industry, one of the major industrial polluters in Malaysia, is discharging wastewater which contains much organic and inorganic matter from various stages of process operations. Therefore, this study investigated the effectiveness of effective microorganisms (EM) in an Anaerobic Sequencing Batch Reactor (ASBR) system to treat rubber processing wastewater. Four different ratios of EM/wastewater volume were used; 1:100, 1:500, 1:1000 and 1:2000. Chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), turbidity and total suspended solids (TSS) were analyzed in the wastewater. The treatment of EM/wastewater ratio of 1:1000 successfully reduced up to 60% of COD, 62% of BOD5, 62% of turbidity, and 84% of TSS. This system managed to reduce the pollutants concentrations to the final COD concentration of 557 mg/L, BOD5 concentration of 226 mg/L, turbidity of 255 NTU and TSS concentration of 75 mg/L. It was found that the ratio of 1:1000 performed best to treat the sample. Overall, this study suggested that EM technology in an anaerobic environment has the capability of elevating the quality of the treated rubber wastewater.