Wastewater Treatment of Fish Canning Industry With Ultrafiltration Membrane Technology

The fish canning industry requires significant amounts of clean water. However, its wastewater contains large quantities of organic materials like proteins and fats. Many fish canning industries have wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) but do not reuse the treated water. Based on the test results, the wastewater characteristics were as follows: BOD content of 10 mg/L, chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 45 mg/L, total coliform of 3500 CFU/100 mL, and Fe concentration of 0.219 mg/L. These values exceed the quality standards required for raw water, highlighting the need for further treatment. To address this, an ultrafiltration (UF) unit was designed to meet the industry's needs and regulatory requirements. The design of the UF unit is planned using the WAVE application, reducing these contaminants to acceptable levels. The proposed UF unit comprises six modules, with a filtration process lasting 30 min and a backwash process lasting 3.4 min. The treated water quality from the UF unit is projected to achieve significant reductions in contaminants, lowering the BOD content to 0.225 mg/L, COD to 1.8 mg/L, total coliform to 0.04 mg/L, and Fe concentration to 0.000003 mg/L. These improvements ensure compliance with the required raw water quality standards and support sustainable water reuse in fish canning operations.