Proposta de método de redução da concentração de nitrogênio amoniacal em efluentes oriundos de indústria de beneficiamento do leite

Abstract

The pollution of water resources is not a recent problem, even though it is not a new subject, its discussion increases every year around the world, the discharge of sewage and industrial effluents without any treatment or even without proper treatment leads to eutrophication of waters, directly affecting the ecosystem present, from plants to aquatic animals. The companies have been seeking to improve the treatment of their effluents, this directly implies investments in effluent treatment plants (ETP), where they go through physical, chemical and/or biological processes, so that at the end of these processes are properly within the standards of environmental legislation. From this, companies that do not have enough space or money for an investment in the ETP's expansion look for additional treatments to fit in with the quality standards. The purpose of this work was to elaborate an additional method to the treatment of effluents from the milk processing industry, in order to reduce the concentration of ammoniacal nitrogen using the principle of Le Chatelier to favor its elimination, where the ideal conditions (pH, temperature and agitation) were verified, finding out the most efficient way to apply the method. The results obtained show that the ideal pH is around 10.0, causing the displacement of the chemical balance to remove part of the ammoniacal nitrogen in the form of gaseous ammonia, reducing its concentration to levels in accordance with the legislation. As it is an easy to use and low cost method of operation, it is possible to perform it in ETP's.