Textile wastewater treatment: Biodegradability on aerobic and anaerobic process

Textile wastewater, mainly generated from batik small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is still becoming a serious problem to be tackled. Due to lack of treatment facilities and adequate knowledge and skill, many batik SMEs are disposing their wastewater directly to environment, include river, ditch, etc. "Batik Blimbing" Malang SMEs also has the same problem and eager to change the practice. This study aimed to investigate the potential of treating textile wastewater on aerobic or anaerobic condition. Aerobic biodegradability was carried out using a closed bottle test, while anaerobic biodegradability was tested using Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) test. The results showed that treating textile wastewater can be potential option as seens by 80-85% BOD removal, or aproximately 12-13% BOD/COD removal compared to that of the theoritical value of 15% BOD/COD removal. While, anaerobic digestion treatment indicating that a high COD concentration may inhibit the ability of microorganism consortia to degrade COD into biogas.