A review on progresses and performances in distillery stillage management

An increasing - and increasingly urban - world population has led to a boom in the distillery industry for the production of ethanol as potable alcohol, industrial chemical, and bio-fuel. Distillery industries, next to the paper industries, continue to be a major source for surface water pollution due to their highly organic and complex wastewater containing recalcitrant organics, persistent color, sulfate, chlorides, phosphorus and nitrogen. Despite that, advancements in distillery stillage treatment have not kept pace with the problem. This review examines the composition and the extent of stillage discharge into the physical environment with respect to advances in stillage management. Uniquely, this review addresses the local and global environmental burden of stillage discharge and the efficiencies achieved in stillage management. Typically, this review tries to bridge the gap in information between the traditional stillage treatment approach and the most current and advanced techniques. Moreover, the challenges of applying novel techniques in stillage management and the gaps for further research are discussed. Basically, the classical anaerobic -aerobic degradation is much explored technique to treat stillage so far. Though, the integrated stillage treatment approaches which include feed modification, physicochemical/ biological hybrid systems, advanced oxidation systems and the catalysis degradation processes are recently being tested. Ultimately, it has become clear that a single technology cannot be sufficient to manage stillage. Thus, energy benefiting technology that leads to a sustainable stillage management through environmental conservation is suggested. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.