Pretreatment of olive mill wastewater by ultrafiltration process using chitosan

This paper presents pretreatment experiments of olive mill wastewater with ultrafiltration process using chitosan. The optimization of major process variables, such as chitosan concentration, transmembrane pressure, and operation time, on permeate flux and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency was investigated. To find the most appropriate result for the experiment, the Box-Wilson experimental design was employed. The predicted values of permeate flux and COD removal efficiency obtained using the response function were in good agreement with the experimental data. The optimum set of chitosan concentration and pressure for permeate flux were 100 mg/L and 2 bar, respectively, with 42 L/m(2) h flux value at 80 min operation time. On the other hand, optimum set was 500 mg/L and 1 bar for COD removal with 80.3% COD removal efficiency at the same operation time.