International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 6, Issue 7, July-2015 264 ISSN 2229-5518 IJSER © 2015 http://www.ijser.org Investigation on Wastewater Treatment of Maize Processing Effluent Mona A. Abdel-Fatah*, H. O. Sherif **, and S. I. Hawash* Abstract— In this study a treatment unit for wastewater resulted from maize processing for sucrose, fructose and starch production is pro- posed. Wastewater obtained with a capacity of 3960 m 3 /day is analysed. Main pollutants in wastewater are settable matter, sulphide, SO2 , ammonia; COD and BOD while no problems concerning pH, temperature, oil and grease. The recommended treatment process is a high rate aerobic activated sludge (sludge load 0.5 kg BOD/ kg sludge day). Total dissolved solids will be critical even after aerobic. Most of the organic will be removed, but inorganic salts may be too high. This will require some type of reverse osmosis (RO) treatment which is suitable also for Cl--removal; while total phosphorus removal will be done by chemical precipitation. Keywords: Glucose syrup, Fructose maize syrup, Strach, Maize wastewater; Aerobic & Anaerobic treatment. ——————————  —————————— 1 INTRODUCTION aize starch is the major industrial raw material for glu- cose and fructose syrup production in the US and in major other parts of the world [1]. The industrial processing of starch to sugars can be carried out either by acid or enzymatic hydrolysis [2]. However the use of enzymes is preferred to acid, once it produces high yields of desired products and less formation of undesired products such as toxic compounds [3].Chemically, sugar is the substance sucrose which can be hydrolysed in acidic solution (i.e. below pH 7) to from the mono-saccharides glucose and fructose [4]. For starch production, maize grains are digested, which is capital intensive and time consuming (24 to 52h) and acidic pH (4 to 5) created with lactic bacteria [5,6] which inhib- its the survival and multiplication of bacterial pathogens [7]. A large quantity of wastewater is resulting in all process steps as well as from washing of industrial surfaces [8]. The waste effluents for processing products from fresh maize con- taining substantial amount of protein [9]. Different techniquies are used to treate the wastewater be- fore discharging as anaerobic and/or aerobic degradation [10], electrocoagulation [11] etc. The main objective of this investigation is to treate the waste effluent and maximize water consumption by recycling portion of treated water to reuse in washing steps or else- where. Proposed treatment unit presents an effluent and low cost indusrial wastewater treatment plant to meet the required effluent standards. 2 EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES 2.1 Wastewater Characteristics Samples collected from the 165 m 3 /hr, resulting wastewater from National Company for Maize Products (NCMP) in Egypt; are analyzed and results of analyses are shown in table (1). Table (1): NCMP Waste Effluent Composition M ———————————————— *National Research Centre, Chemical Engineering and Pilot Plant Department. **Faculty of Engineering, Chemical Engineering Department, Minia University. ∗ Corresponding author Tel: +20 2 337 5626; Fax: +20 2 337 0931 E-mail addresses: monamamin7@yahoo.com (EGYPT). PARAMETER AVERAGE Permissable Limits * Wastewater Flow (m 3 /d) 3,960 (m 3 / hr) 165 Chemical Oxygen Demand COD (mg/l) 8000 < 700 COD (kg/day) 31,680 - COD / BOD5 ratio 1.73 1.75 BOD5 (kg/day) 18,312 - Temperature ( o C) 30 - 35 < 40 Suspended Solids (SS mg/l) < 600 < 500 N-Kjeldahi (mg N/l) 125 40 Phosphate (mg PO4 /l) 12 30 pH 5 - 8 6-10 Sulphate (mg SO4 /l) 150 < 10 IJSER