CAPWATT

The olive industry generates residual effluents that, due to their physical-chemical characteristics, can be difficult to treat in a sustainable and economically viable way. These wastes are mainly made up of fats, sugars, nitrogenous substances, organic acids and polyphenols, among others. Its treatment can be a great problem due to its high water content, which is associated with a high cost of transport to manage it externally, but also for its high content of solids and phenolic compounds that are difficult to oxidize, which makes its chemical and biological treatment more expensive.

For these reasons, it is of great interest to reduce the volume of these effluents through a technology that allows separating and recovering part of the water contained in it, minimizing operating costs (low energy and maintenance consumption) and avoiding the generation of effluents. secondary residuals. Thus, it would be expected that the application of freeze concentration would allow these waste effluents to be treated in a viable manner.

The cryoconcentration process allows concentrating liquid effluents by freezing and obtaining a fraction of frozen water as clean as possible, and a concentrated liquid fraction that would contain mainly organic matter and inorganic salts.

The main objective of this collaboration between Capwatt and the BETA Technological Centre is to evaluate the efficiency of the cryoconcentration process of a residual effluent from the olive oil industry, on a laboratory scale and on a pilot scale.