Assessing biomass diversity and performance of an activated sludge process treating saline table olive processing wastewater.

This study aimed to determine the effects of salinity on the biomass behavior and its diversity in activated sludge process (ASP) treating the table olive processing wastewater (TOPW), and to evaluate ASP performances under increased TOPW concentration feeding, the numerical abundance, diversity and activity of the biomass, removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand (COD), phenolic compounds, nitrogen and phosphorus were evaluated. Results showed that biomass growth is very high and became faster according to an increase in the percentage of TOPW feeding and reached 5.2 g l.