TREATMENT OF WASTEWATER CONTAINING CARBOHYDRATES USING PICHIA SAITOI CULTURE

Abstract Treatment of wastewater containing carbohydrates by Pichia saitoi growing on beet molasses was investigated in a well-mixed continuous tank as an alternative to bulking control.The yeast strain that used in this work was isolated from non-alcoholic beverage industrial wastewater, with a view on TOC removal compared with other strains in previous study.In this research the isolated yeast showed high COD and TOC removal at three hydraulic retention times, HRT= 48, 24 and 18 hours.Maximum COD and TOC reductions were obtained at HRT=48 hours, which were 96% and 88%, respectively.The influent COD and TOC were 2500 and 148 mg/l, respectively.The pH maintained for synthetic wastewater was about 9.The changes of pH within the aeration tank at each HRT was monitored.Effects of organic loading rate (OLR) on COD and TOC reduction efficiencies were studied in this work.Aeration rate was between 0.2-0.25 vvm, which was very low in comparison to the other studies.This yeast strain had high settling ability (maximum SVI was observed at 60 ml/g) and also high F/M ratios (maximum of F/M was 2.9 kg COD/kg MLSS.day).