Paper Title
Activated Sludge Process Applied to The Treatment of Table Olive Processing Wastewater in Morocco

Abstract
Nowadays wastewater management become an obligation in order to prevent freshwater resources from pollution. In Morocco, the majority of food industries rejects wastewater directly in nature without any previous treatment, which leads to serious environmental impact.. In this work, treatment essays of table olive processing wastewater (TOPW) in activated pilot plant is investigated. The agro-food industry studied is located in Marrakech (Morocco) , and it processes different kinds of olives such as the green table olives , oxidized olives , shriveled black olive and turning olives. The production process consumes a big amounts of water and rejects the same quantity as wastewater (TOPW). The characterization of TOPW shows a high content of COD(35�1 g/l), high conductivity (30 ms/cm ) and toxic phenolic compounds (4.5�0.2g/l) .Theses characteristics are varying according to the functioning steps of the industrial process and their relative wastewater percentage in the mixture of the global effluent. In spite of this variability, the mean characteristics ranged between biodegradable effluent intervals and could be apparently applied to biological treatment. The evaluation of the treatability of TOPW is tested in 60 l lab-scale activated sludge pilot plant (AS) during a period of biomass acclimation of three months. The monitoring of the biomass characteristics (MVS, respiration rate, extra polymer Substances) and performances parameters such as Chemical oxygen demand(COD) , Suspended solids (SS), volatile suspended solids (VSS) and phenol concentration were weekly analyzed. Experimental results show that after total acclimation of the biomass to the industrial effluent , the MVS show an optimal growth of5g/l, and the OURreached 20 gO2.gmvs-1.h-1 . The removal efficiencies attain 90% for SS, 90% for COD and until 85% for the phenolic compounds at the same period; This percentage of removal shows that The Activated sludge process is an efficient system for the studied wastewater . Keywords- activated sludge, Table olive processing wastewater, biomass, performances.