Diseño de una planta de tratamiento de aguas residuales para la industria Láctea “PLADELACT” ubicada en la comunidad de Utuñag

Abstract

The objective of this curricular integration work consisted of designing a wastewater treatment plant for the Dairy Plant (PLADELACT) industry located in the community of Utuñag, Penipe canton, in accordance with the general regulations for the discharge of effluents into the public sewage system, in Book VI of the Unified Text of Secondary Environmental Legislation of the Ministry of the Environment (TULSMA), ANNEX 1, TABLE 8. For this purpose, the initial physical-chemical and microbiological characterization of the effluents generated by this industry was a starting point, in order to determine the values of turbidity (825 NTU), pH (4.78), chlorides (1180 mg/l), oils and greases (102.0 mg/l), COD (13450 mg/l), BOD5 (9120 mg/l), total solids (18250 mg/l), etc. These results showed values of the parameters outside the permissible limits in the aforementioned standard, leading to the development of wastewater treatability tests using the jar test and aeration and filtration techniques, with the aim of reducing the amount of pollutants. In this way, engineering calculations were made for the design and sizing of a treatment plant consisting of an oil and grease trap, an Imhoff tank for sedimentation, a first aeration stage, a coagulation and flocculation stage, a second aeration stage, and finally a filtration stage. After treating the wastewater with this plant, the final characterization of the resulting water was carried out, yielding values of the parameters within the standard, as follows: turbidity (2.8 NTU), pH (7.38), chlorides (780 mg/l), oils and fats (10.4 mg/l), COD (492 mg/l), BOD5 (187 mg/l), total solids (980 mg/l), etc. Consequently, these results validated the proposed design. The company is recommended to have a closed, pollutant-isolated sedimentation procedure.