Nature based solutions for winery wastewater valorisation

Abstract

To valorise winery treated wastewater and to produce suitable water for the irrigation of vineyards, or other factory operations, the WETWINE project set up a combination of a hydrolytic up-flow sludge blanket (HUSB) reactor and constructed wetlands (CW). The WETWINE plant is located in Tomiño (Pontevedra, Spain) and is being validated at the demo-scale at Santiago Ruiz Winery (NW Spain). The plant consisted of a HUSB reactor for removing suspended solids and hydrolyse organic matter, followed by two vertical subsurface flow constructed wetland (VF) operating in parallel and to provide further treatment, a horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetland (HF) operating in series. After two years of continuous monitoring and regardless in the variation of flow and load, the hybrid system achieved average removal efficiencies of over 93% for total suspended solids and chemical oxygen demand, receiving an overall surface loading of up to 115 g COD/m2·d. Total nitrogen removal reached 62% with an average concertation of 21 mg N/ L. The WETWINE plant was also able to increased the pH in the effluent from 5.5 at the influent to 7.2.