Study on Brazilian agribusiness wastewaters: composition, physical‑chemical characterization, volumetric production and resource recovery

Abstract

Brazil is a significant producer of agricultural and agro-industrial waste, which can be used to recover valuable resources, such as struvite, hydroxyapatite, methane gas, hydrogen gas, and carboxylic acids, to mitigate the environmental impacts of the agro-industrial sector, add economic value to organic waste, and promote the sustainability of natural resources. Thus, this work's objective was to compile and analyze data on the composition, physical-chemical characterization, and volumetric production of six agricultural and agro-industrial wastewaters (AWWs) from activities of paramount importance in Brazilian agribusiness and to report studies on resource recovery from those liquid wastes. The literature review was carried out by analyzing scientific works obtained by searching for keywords in different databases. It was concluded that swine wastewaters (SWs), slaughterhouse wastewaters (SHWs), and dairy wastewaters (DWs) are the most promising for struvite recovery. DWs also stand out for the recovery of hydroxyapatite. SWs and brewery wastewaters (BWs) are commonly used for prospecting for algae or bacterial biomass and their derivative products. All AWWs analyzed are considered promising for biogas, methane and hydrogen, while the most soluble AWWs are more valuable for carboxylic acid production.