Clean technology in fish processing industries

Marlene Roeckel*, M. Cristina Martit and Estrella Aspe

Depto de Ingenier[a Qu[mica, Fac. de Ingenieria, Casilla 53-C, Universidad de
Concepci6n, Concepci6n, Chile
tDepto de Farmacologia, Fac. de Ciencias Bioldgicas, Casilla 152-C, Universidad de
Concepcidn, Concepci6n, Chile
Received 15 September 1993
The effects of fish-meal manufacturing effluents on the seawater has reached troublesome
levels in Chile, particularly in the VIIIth Region where most of the fish-meal industries are
located. The scope of this work was to study the process, classi~ the pollutant streams, and
pinpoint those steps that could be improved in order to reduce their contaminant effect, while
salvaging reusable organic matter. As a result, we propose the introduction of a new step in
the fish reduction process that involves recirculation of the pumping water used to unload the
fish, screening of coarse organic matter, flocculation of soluble proteins in the recirculate and
its separation by centrifugation, and the incorporation of both coarse and flocculated material
to the reduction process. This reduces by 91.6% the estimated chemical oxygen demand (COD)
value of a ton of processed fish and increases by 7% the industries' productivity. Reduction
of the remnant organic load can be achieved by in-series anaerobic and aerobic degradation.
The effect of the latter treatment reduces by an additional 5.6% the COD value. Marginal
profits are higher than the treatment cost for high technology plants, as shown by a return
on investment of 52.89% after a 5 year period.
Keywords: fish-meal; wastewater treatment; clean technology

Introduction to apply the clean technology concept to the local

Chile has become the most important producer of
fish-meal in the world. In 1992 its total production I
reached 1.23 × 106 ton of which approximately 60%
was locally produced (Vlllth Region). While fish-meal
production has steadily increased, it has severely
damaged the environment owing to the dumping of
wastewaters in the sea. Roughly 65 000 ton of COD
per year have been poured into the nearby bays2,
which are surrounded by 17 fish-meal factories (3.23
x I06 ton of fish processed during 1992).
The Chilean Legislature is presently studying an
Environmental Protection Act which will probably be
enforced in the near future, so industries will have to
comply to the set standards to avoid sizeable fines.
This work is the result of a joint project involving an
academic group, the regional Association of Fish Meal
Producers, and government authorities, to solve the
above-mentioned problems.
The adequate handling of wastewaters should take
into account the characteristics and final destination
of all the streams involved in the process, so as to
choose the best technology available for treatment at
the lowest cost. Therefore, the goal of this work was
*Correspondence to M. Roeckel
0959-6526/94/01/0031-05
~) 1994 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
fish-meal processing industries, so as to minimize the
liquid residues that they generate and, at the same
time, increase their productivity. To achieve this,
different wastewater treatments for liquid effluents
were assayed, at laboratory and pilot scale, to deter-
mine their depuration efficiency and their implemen-
tation cost.
Liquid effluents from the fish-meal industry
Wastewaters from the local fish-meal industries are
rich in organic matter, particularly soluble proteins,
which can be recovered for the production process.
The remnant organic matter may be treated by a
sequential anaerobic-aerobic degradation.
An important feature of these effluents is that they
are not continuously generated, but when they are
being generated they tend to be highly concentrated
owing to a significant seasonal variation in fish catch
(industries usually process more fish during the late
autumn and early winter months3), and the unloading
of huge amounts of fish from the ships in a very short
time (up to 36000 ton per day). Furthermore, 17 fish-
meal industries are located quite near the shoreline of
three adjacent bays (Figure 1), thus the site of effluent
dumping is a fairly confined area.
J. Cleaner Prod. 1994 Volume 2 Number 1 31
Clean technology in fish-meal industry: M. Roeckel etal.
N
appropriate methods7. As they are highly unsaturated
Bay of
and labile oils, their biological degradation does not
Concepci6n S pose any difficulty; however, they interfere with the
treatment operation since the microbial floe tend to
float.

Son V i c e ~ _ . ~
Figure 1 San Vicenteand Concepci6nbaysand the Gulfof Arauco
in the VIIIth Region; X denotes location of fish-mealindustries
As with other food industries, some of the effluents
are rich in protein and fat and are produced by batch
processing.
The unloading of fish is carried out by flooding the
ship's holds with seawater and the fish-water mixture
is then pumped to the harbour. Thus, during unloading,
a typical ship produces an effluent (pump water)
volume ranging from 5 to 11 m3/ton of fish while the
volume of the effluent from the reduction process
ranges from 2 to 10 m3/ton of fish. The loss of organic
matter in pump water represents 11% of the catch so
its recovery for the process is quite attractive.
These effluents are presently dumped to the bay
inducing chemical and physical changes in its waters.
The main physical effects are caused by the suspended
solids in the effluent, giving rise to unpleasant odours,
and turbidity, a brownish colouring and increased
temperature of the seawater; chemical changes involve
the consumption of the seawater's dissolved oxygen.
Effluent handling
The first step is to classify the effluents according to
the relative incidence in the pouring of organic load
(kg COD h -1) and total flow (m 3 h-l). This allows
the segregation or clustering of individual streams and
their eventual fate. At this stage the goal was to save
water so as to reduce final treatment costs.
F i g u r e 2 shows a classification of individual effluents
produced by two fish-meal factories that use different
processes. Based on their volumetric flow and organic
load, their S indexesa were calculated; thus their
relative environmental impact can be related to their
S index:
S = %OL - %F
where S = order index, % O L = percentage of organic
load related to the total organic load poured by the
industry, and %F = percentage of volumetric flow
related to the industry total flow. A large S value
indicates high organic load and hence the effluent
requires aggressive treatment; on the other hand, a
large negative value implies that the effluent could
eventually be dumped without further treatment.
High flow streams, such as pump water effluent,
are difficult to treat, therefore effluent recirculation
is highly desirable and technically feasible, as was
demonstrated by our group. Other streams are low in
organic content so, after pH and temperature correc-
tion, they can be poured directly into the sea. The
: For on i n d i r e c t d r y i n g process

Proteins in pumping water are present as fish chunks, 20

suspended particles or in the soluble state. The fish ~, ~o
chunks and the suspended particles can be separated ~o
by physical means such as screening. Partial characteriz- ~ "10

ation of the soluble proteins, e.g isoelectric point and -20 '"'"""""Ililllilt
molecular weight determination, helps in choosing the "10
Pump water Washing Drying Conventional Foiling film
evaporation evaporation
most appropriate method for their recovery4. B:For n direct drying process
Remnant organic compounds from the above treat- zO
ment may be biologically degraded, a process that
requires high oxygen consumption. Thus, nitrogen-
containing molecules consume 4 kg of oxygen/kg of
]'° 1S

0
S

ammonium nitrogen, since they are successively oxid-

ized to nitrites and nitrates 5. Certain proteins are
-10 IlllnifllL
-15
quite resistant to degradation, therefore they may be Pump water Washing Conventional Deodorizer
evaporation
considered as refractory substrates 6.
Most of the fat in these effluents is in the form of
emulsified oils, therefore their separation requires Figure 2 Stream classification according to the S index

32 J. Cleaner Prod. 1994 Volume 2 Number 1


condensates of the evaporation process represent an
intermediate situation, since they are high in fat
content but low in proteins, thus the most adequate
approach to their handling is to remove the fat and
to reduce their temperature.
Clean technology
If the industries' goal is to reach a clean technology
process they must reduce process effluents to a
minimum. Recirculation, solid screening and soluble-
protein recovery were suggested as an additional step
in the fish-meal industry process in order to improve
raw material utilization and reduce the polluting effect
of effluents (Figure 3), while increasing profitability
by recovering organic matter. The resultant effluents
may be recycled and reused in the industrial processing
and then eventually undergo biological degradation.
Organic matter recovery
Various alternatives were studied for recovering the
organic matter and thus increasing productivity. As a
result, a change in the unloading system from centrifu-
gal to vacuum pumping was suggested, as well as
solids recovery, pump water recycling and soluble-
protein recovery.
For the Trachurus murphyii species, vacuum pump-
ing reduces raw material loss, thus increasing the
process yield by 0.6 ton/100 ton of unloaded fish. The
use of screens or rotatory drums recovers solids,
mainly scales with an average diameter of 2-3 mm;
curved screens allow the recovery of 4 kg of solids/
ton of fish and the removal of approximately 50% of
the COD. For other species the recovery is somewhat
less.
Water / F i s h
1 little available space.
J Unloading ~ ' ~ Fish
P
l
-- . . . . .
r ...... "~
L~ci_rc_u/o_ti°nj
r ...... "1
~,S c r e e n i n g I r .....
....... J ~ i Evoporationh.4b i Drying i I
r ...... -, w L .....
iCent rifugalion '
,. . . . . . . . J I
Treatment
L . . . . . . . . . 1
Discharge
Figure 3 Pump water incorporation to the production process and
treatment of the generated effluents (dean technology)
Clean technology in fish-meal industry: M. Roeckel et al.
The best technical and economical alternative for
soluble-protein recovery from pump water is floccu-
lation with ferric chloride followed by centrifugation
and re-incorporation of the resultant sludge to the
process. The effects of the addition of this sludge to
the process were assessed by mass balances of protein,
fat and salt content. The possible deleterious effect of
increasing the ferric salt concentration was determined
by feeding poultry with fish-meal to which the sludge
had been incorporated during its manufacture. How-
ever, additional nutritional assays must be carried out
using mammals and salmon as substrates. The sludge
incorporation should increase productivity by 1.6 ton
of fish meal/100 ton of fish, hence improving by 7%
its fish-meal yield.
Technology selection for biological treatment
Technology selection was a challenging topic because
of the effluent characteristics: high volumetric flow
and high salinity due to chloride and sulfate, the type
of fish species caught in Chile, and fish processing.
Although previous treatments remove most of the
organic matter, the resultant wastewater is still high
in proteins and requires further treatment. The best
alternative is a sequential anaerobic-aerobic degra-
dation, since for systems with high protein and
ammonia contents a degradation in series has been
suggested 9.
Anaerobic and aerobic degradation has been carried
out at bench scale and its technical feasibility and
operational stability has been established. Pilot scale
assays must be carried out in order to find out both
the relative effect of each step and the combined
system response. Since the volumetric flow has already
been reduced to manageable proportions, the
implementation of a treatment plant at industrial scale
is technically feasible, even for those industries with
The methanogenic efficiency was calculated from
the ratio between the rates of the equivalent gas
organic load and the feeding load. At bench scale, a
1 methanogenic efficiency of up to 50% was obtained,
I
I thus the reactor must be chosen to operate at high
J
-1 r---q! biomass concentrations. From the methanization and
biodegradation efficiency data in high-rate reactors
J L------J I
(Figure 4), and for stability and operative simplicity,
the anaerobic filter was chosen for scaling to pilot
proportions.
Aerobic digestion must follow the anaerobic step
since the resultant effluent still contains organic matter
resistant to anaerobic degradation, and ammonium
which has to be oxidized to nitrites and nitrates. Figure
5 shows the reduction in organic matter content by
aerobic degradation. The use of oxygen-enriched air
was proposed as a way to reduce costs, diminish
slurry production and increase the rate of slurry
sedimentation 1°,11. At bench and pilot scale, an
efficiency and economical comparison for the same
degree of depuration between air and oxygen-enriched
J. Cleaner Prod. 1994 Volume 2 Number 1 33
 Clean technology in fish-meal industry: M. Roeckel et al.

Table 2 Characteristic features of a prototype industry and

required technological changes to achieve cleaner technology

9°l Step Present status Alternative I Alternative II

i '° 7o~
Unloading
Pumping Centrifugal Centrifugal Vacuum
Unloading lines 2 2 2
(100 ton h -1)
~ 60 Screening No Yes Yes
Recirculation No Yes Yes
Protein and fat No Yes Yes
separation
Process
Unloading lines 2 2 2
2.9 4.5 8.9 16
(40 ton h - i )
l_oading rate (Kg CO01mlldny) Evaporator type Falling film Falling film Falling film
Dryer type Indirect Indirect Indirect
Figure 4 Comparison of COD depuration efficiencies of different Fat and oil removal No Yes Yes
anaerobic reactors (bench scale, 37°C) at increasing loading rates. Biological treatment
I-q, Fluidized bed; X, anaerobic filter; &, upflow anaerobic sludge of pump, process No Yes Yes
blanket (UASB); ©, mixed UASB-anaerobic filter; II, fixed film and wash waters

100"

effluents from fish-meal industries should be a pion-

a0 eering step in the transfer of these technologies to
other food and organic-related industries and hopefully
C will spur their use.
.o 60"
.4-
tJ
"1
"10 Economical evaluation
L. 40"
The economical assessment of the effluent treatment
was carried out, taking into account the present

°1 20
reduction process used by the industries and the
technological changes required to move towards a
clean technology process. Table 2 shows characteristic
0 features of the prototype local fish-meal industry and,
6.A 10.4 14 3 according to their present unloading system, the
Hydraulic residence time (h) proposed improvements. These include switching from
Figure 5 COD depuration efficiency of an aerobic treatment for
centrifugal to vacuum pump unloading, the use of
effluents of the fish-meal industry (bench scale, 15°C) screening and recirculation of the resultant liquid,
organic matter recovery and biological degradation of
the remnant matter.
Table 1 Design, equipment and operating costs of a plant for
treating 132 m 3a of effluent per day with air or oxygen It has been demonstrated that the more technologi-
cally advanced an industry is (alternative II) the more
Air flow Oxygen flow profitable it is, since it will benefit from the additional
(165 m 3 h -1) (1.03 m 3 h - l ) income derived from the recovered organic matter.
Thus, Table 3 shows that for the latter industries, the
Size Cost Size Cost
net actual value is positive and the return on investment
Reactor (m 3) 194 38947 115 27560 is greater than the legal discount rate (10%). Also
Clarifier (m 3) 27 8632 27 8632 included in this table is the additional cost to be
Stirrer (hp) 90 52 430 - -
Compressor (hp) 90 97120 - -
0 2 supply -- - - 7000 Table 3 Marginal evaluation of changing to clean technology
Total (US$) 201665 47728
Alternative I Alternative II
Operating cost 40 907 1892
Economic index (Centrifugal pump) (Vacuum pump)
(US$/year)
Actual net value
Average effluent flow for a typical local fish-meal industry
(US$) 1 144 095 2 972 298
Return on investment
(%) - 52.89
air was performed. Table 1 shows that by using oxygen- Max. time to recover
enriched air it is possible to reduce equipment and the investment (years) GTEP ~ 2
Additional cost (US$/
operating costs. ton of fish-meal) 3.29
An already planned and recently funded pilot plant
for the sequential anaerobic-aerobic treatment of a Greater than the 5 year evaluated period

34 J. Cleaner Prod. 1994 Volume 2 Number 1

 Clean technology in fish-meal industry: M. Roeckel et al.

Table 4 Investment cost to change to 'alternative II' type and by treating the resultant effluents. The new steps
technology for a fish-meal industry with two unloading lines
can give rise to marginal profits, especially in the
Process Amount invested (US$) more technologically advanced industries. Marginal
profits are higher than the treatment cost, as shown
Primary treatment 1864147 by the calculated values of the return on investment
Anaerobic treatment 93 828 and the net actual value indexes.
Aerobic treatment 92667
Fat and oil removal 153522
Total investment 2 204 163
Acknowledgements
This work was possible through a joint grant P N U D /
Table 5 The environmental impact of implementing clean U N I D O (US/CHI/90/284) - Association of Fish Meal
technology in the fish-meal industries (unloading by vacuum
pumping) Producers (VIII Region). The authors thank the
information and technical assistance provided by man-
Remnant load COD removal agers and engineers, particularly Mr Enrique Cisterna,
Step (kg COD ton -1) (%)4
Mr Simon Gundelach, Mr Christian Martin and Ms
Screening 2.84 5.0 Fernanda Taboada of the Association of Fish Meal
Recirculation 0.80 67.0 Producers.
Centrifugation 0.21 19.6
Anaerobic treatment 0.095 3.8
Aerobic treatment 0.042 1.8
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J. Cleaner Prod. 1994 Volume 2 N u m b e r 1 35