Purification of wastewater from the brewing industry using methane fermentation technology

The brewing industry generates a large amount of secondary material resources, namely: excess brewer's yeast, malt grain, malt sprouts, grain waste, protein sludge and a large amount of wastewater with varying degrees of organic pollution. These wastes contain a complex of nutrients, minerals and biologically active substances. Some of them (brewer's yeast, malt grain) are used as feed additives to the diet of farm animals as part of compound feed or in their native form. The brewing industry is a branch of food industry with a high degree of water consumption and, accordingly, a large amount of wastewater generated in the production process. Wastewater from the brewing industry belongs to the category of highly polluted, therefore, for their effective cleaning, it is necessary to use suitable and economically beneficial technologies. Substances dissolved in water cannot be filtered or precipitated using coagulants, removed using flotation, etc. Some of the impurities, for example, proteins, can be remo ved by physical and chemical methods, but the main part of them is in the solution. Effective cleaning is possible only if complex compounds are destroyed directly in the wastewater. Existing cleaning technologies using physical and chemical methods are imperfect because they have low cleaning rates. The best option for brewery wastewater treatment technology is the use of biotechnological cleaning methods. Such methods include methane fermentation. Methane fermentation is an anaerobic biochemical process that occurs under the influence of microorganisms of the genus Methanobacterium. This process leads to a significant reduction in the level of sewage pollution. The final products of methane fermentation are biogas and microbial protein with a high content of essential aminoacids. For wastewater treatment of the brewing industry the use of methane fermentation technology was proposed, the final products of which are highly purified wastewater and biogas