
Figure 1: Beneficiation of tannery effluent using anaerobic digestion (Mpofu et al., 2023).
The viability of treating tannery waste with a novel integrated biological system comprising a series-connected hybrid linear flow channel reactor (HLFCR) and anaerobic sequential batch reactor (AnSBR) was studied. Many of the irrigation standards were met by the final treated effluent. The digestate (biofertiliser) complied with the requirements for use in agriculture. The integrated system would create a floating sulphur biofilm with 33% sulphur, 3420 m3 of methane, 50 m3 of irrigation water, and 31 tonnes of biofertiliser at a medium-sized local tannery treating 2258 m3/day of waste. A total of $5559/day of revenue might be made through the sale of recovered resources and possible savings, which result in a 72% drop in electricity usage and a 62% drop in sludge disposal (Figure 10) (Mpofu, A.B., Oyekola, O.O and Welz, P.J., 2021).

Figure 1: Beneficiation of tannery effluent using anaerobic digestion (Mpofu et al., 2023).