Characterization and anaerobic pretreatment of the effluent from a wine cooperative

The wastewater from a modern Portuguese wine producing cooperative has been characterized by an automatic sampler which allowed for the collection of daily and hourly averaged samples in two distinct representative situations: the vintage and non-vintage periods of the year. Continuous data of room and wastewater temperatures, pH and flow rate were stored in a data logging system. The winery sells most of the husk and settled sour vine to distilleries, which reduces the quantity of waste and the wastewater pollution load as well as providing an additional source of income. However, the concentration values were higher than the limits allowed by the local authority for discharge into the municipal sewage system; therefore, lab-scale tests were carried out using an anaerobic hybrid filter, to get comparative data on the feasibility of such an anaerobic process to pre-treat this wastewater. The main results, obtained during 7 months of experimentation, indicate that satisfactory COD removals (0.65-0.90) can be ensured by this reactor configuration at relatively low hydraulic retention times (2-3 d), which makes this solution simple and favorable for application in this case study.