Electrocoagulation system assisted with magnetic field and ozonation to treat effluents from the tannery industry.

The tanning industry is an important activity in the economic development of Peru and this is due to the diversity of articles that are generated from leather. However, the tanneries have poor production practices and use low technology in their processes. This causes environmental problems related to the generation of large volumes of highly polluted effluents, which are discharged directly into rivers or sewage networks. Most of these tanneries have not yet implemented an effluent treatment system that guarantees compliance with current environmental regulations, which endangers not only health but also the very existence of the industry. The proposal of this study is to adapt the electrocoagulation technology integrating a magnetic field generator and ozone in order to treat the effluents of tannery effluents to comply with the Maximum Permissible Limits.

The tannery industry produces a large number of articles from leather and on demand hides tanned to the wet blue state (wet-tanned hide). The technology used by this industry for its production processes is incipient and low-tech, in addition to bad practices in its processes, which generates pollution problems due to the large volumes of contaminated water that are discharged into bodies of water and sewage. . According to national data on leather production in Peru, in 2017 between 45 and 50 m3 of effluents were produced for each ton of tanned leather, which indicates the generation of approximately 30,000 m3 of effluents. These effluents contain high concentrations of chromium and organic load such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), sulfides, ammonium, chlorides and salts. Many of these tanneries have not implemented treatment systems for their effluents, due to the high costs of implementation and the absence of treatment systems that are robust, reliable and viable for the economic reality in which they find themselves. These discharges of contaminated effluents endanger the health of the population, as well as the ecosystems of the bodies of water, in addition to putting the existence of these tanneries at risk because they cannot comply with the Maximum Permissible Limits established in the Supreme Decree N° 003-2002-PRODUCE.