Study on Olive Oil Wastewater Treatment: Nanotechnology Impact

The olive mill wastewater (OMW) is generated from olive oil extraction in olive mills. It contains a very high organic load and considerable quantities of phytotoxicity compounds. Comprehensive articles with different methods have been published about the treatment of OMW. This paper reviews the recent reports on the variety methods of OMW treatment. Biological process, containing aerobic pre-treatment by using different cultures and anaerobic co-digestion with other sewage and also added external nutrient with optimum ratio attracted much attention in the treatment of OMW. However, advanced oxidation process (AOP) due to the high oxidation potential which causes destruction of organic pollutants, toxic and chlorinated compounds have been considered. Furthermore, membrane technologies consist of microfiltration, ultrafiltration and especially nanofiltrationin wastewater treatment are growing in recent years. They offer high efficiency and mediocre investments owing to novel membrane materials, membrane design technics, module figures and improvement of the skills. In addition, fouling reduces the membrane performances in time, which is a main problem of cost efficiency.