Investigation of integrated management of olive processing and olive oil production plants wastes

17 million tons of olive are obtained from 900 million olive trees which is located about 9 million hectares of area in the world. 90% of the olive cultivation is done in the Mediterranean Basin, and most of the remaining part is made in Latin America. The production share of the EU member states is about 69% in the Mediterranean basin. Spain, Italy and Greece are the major olive-producing countries in the region. According to TUIK data, our country is in the 6th rank in the world olive production with 1 million 743 thousand tons olive production per year in the period of 2015-2016. World olive oil production is 2 million 800 tons on average between the years 2012-2016. 70% of the olive oil production is made up of EU (European Union) countries, mainly Spain, Italy and Greece. The share of Turkey in world olive oil production is fluctuating from year to year and is around 5%. With this ratio, Turkey is in the 5th rank in the world olive oil production (FA0,2016). Olive and olive oil production in Turkey is mostly done in the Aegean and Marmara regions. Aydın, Izmir, Muğla, Balıkesir, Manisa, Çanakkale are important olive production provinces (Olive and Olive Oil Report, 2016). The methods used for the production of olive oil are divided into two; as the incision method and the continuous production method. The incision method is based on the principle of oil being released by hydraulic presses. Continuous production systems are more modern and based on the principle that oil is released by centrifugation. In incision production systems, olives are washed by adding process water, then grained by crushing and finally kneaded with hot water.The dough is pressed after kneading and seperated in to two pieces in the form of oil and wastewater. The solid phase is called as prina and is assessed as a by-product. In the continuous production system, it is based on the principle of separation of oil and wastewater with the help of decanters instead of pressed olives. This method is also divided into two; three-phase and two-phase depending on the separation method. In the three-phase production system, pressurized water is added while the dough which is formed after kneading is fed to decanter. With this added water, the amount of wastewater from the system increases. This leads to environmental problems. Process water is not used in decanters in a two-phase production system and prina contains all the olive fruit juices. This system has been created because the water used in the three-phase system is a problem for the environment. As a result of the production of olive oil, two types of waste are formed in general as liquid and solid (prina). These liquid wastes are separated into wastewater and wash water. Karasu is a wastewater containing valuable organic trace elements such as phosphorus, potassium and sugars, nitrogen compounds, volatile fatty acids, pectin, polyphenols, in dark brown red color which is turned on at the end of olive oil production. Olive wastewater is characterized by high chemical oxygen demand (COI), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids (AKM), fat and dark color. Physical, chemical, biological, advanced treatment processes and combinations of these processes have been tried to treat wastewater. Treatment methods are applied in lagoons, which are mainly physical treatment methods in our country. Prina wastes are part of fruit meat, seeds and water left after olive oil after decanting and squeezing. In this sense, prina is regarded as a by-product, not waste. Skimmed prina is used as fuel, muck, feed for great cattle, defoamer in soap industry and sugar factories. The energy potential of prina is high, therefore it's mostly used as fuel. According to the 2016 TUIK data, 20 of the 26 major river basins in our country olive production is done. The annual brine production was 194,840 m3/year and wastewater was 826,563 m3/year in the calculations made by considering olive tree existence and olive production amounts in the basins. The Aegean region is the region with the highest concentration of brine and wastewater. The wastewater produced from the production of olive oil and the brine produced from olive processing contain various phenol and polyphenol compounds with high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (KOI), suspended solids (AKM), oil and grease and phytotoxic properties indicates that the sector has a significant pollution potential. The difficulty in the treatment of the mentioned wastewaters is considered to be due to the fact that these wastewaters are highly susceptible to interference with the receiving environment when considering the fact that the wastewater is not currently being operated to a sufficient extent and accordingly it is considered that the degree of pollution loads will be necessary in order to understand the importance of the measures to be taken. It is estimated that the maximum biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is 99.187 tons/year, chemical oxygen demand (COD) is maximum 123.984 tons/year and polyphenol compounds are maximum 1.983 tons/year in the calculations made by taking into consideration the potential of the pollution load which can be advanced from the wastewater. The maximum biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is 3.896 tons/year, maximum chemical oxygen demand (COD) is 6.819 tons/year, and maximum polyphenol compounds are 1.168 tons/year in potential pollution load (that may come from brine) calculations based on all basins. Population values are taken into account in the calculation of the burden to be treated in the urban treatment plants, organic matter and other pollution loads are calculated according to the population and accordingly the facility is being dimensioned. If wastewater or brine water is supplied directly to sewerage areas, the pollution loads to the treatment plant will also increase. For this reason, equivalent population calculations have been made in order to better understand the pollution dimensions of the olive sector wastes. In these calculations, it was assumed that all of the mentioned wastewaters were discharged into the channel within a maximum of 1 month, and accordingly equivalent population calculations were made on the basis of the organic load (BOI) for all the landings discharged in the basins. As a result of these calculations, it was determined that the equivalent population for karasu is minimum 7.653.361, maximum is 61.226.889, minimum value for brine wastewater is 962.173, maximum is 2.405.432. Considering that the equivalent population is 64,447,881 for the year 2016 in the basin, it is understood that the pollution load of land and brine is quite high. For this reason; equivalent population calculations have been made in order to better understand the pollution dimensions of the olive sector wastes. It has been observed that the equivalent population values for wastewater are mostly in Büyük Menderes basin and brine are mostly in Gediz basin. In our country, almost all of the prina is used as fuel after the oil is taken, besides it is used in many fields. Considering the current evaluation method for prina, the energy value of prina is also important for the study suggested by the integrated management system and the knowledge of the energy potential in all the basins is also important for the other works to be done. For this purpose, energy potential is calculated by taking into consideration the average calorific value of prina and the amount of prina that occur in the basins. As a result of calculation, it is seen that the highest energy potential to be obtained from the prina is 55,10 MW in Aydın province. It has been determined that the province of Aydın located in Büyük Menderes Basin has the highest potential to produce energy according to the amount of oiled prina. In addition, the thermal power obtained from the gasification of the pyrene, which is the basis of the integrated management system, is sent to the turbines for electricity generation and the electricity production is realized with the efficiency to be changed according to the 270 MW capacity of the plant and the technology to be selected. For this reason; calculations have been made with the assumption that 15% of the incoming energy has been converted to electricity by selecting a facility. It has been found that the electricity generation potential from prina from all the basins in Turkey is about 40 MW. Integrated waste management is a system operated in such a way as; not to cause the formation of new wastes, with the aim of recycling primarily by recycling wastes with certain characteristics, but also have economic return. All wastes should be reduced first. If wastes can't be reduced, then they should be reused if it's possible. If this isn't possible, recycling or energy production should be applied. If nothing can be done for these wastes after all these operations are done, they should be disposed of in the last stage. According to this, in order to eliminate the problem of pollution caused by olive wastes, brine, wastewater and prina wastes are evaluated together and solution proposal for controlling all wastes is presented. In this way, solution proposals that can be applied to olive and olive oil production wastes, which have great environmental problems, are presented and the size of the problem will be minimized. In the integrated management system described in the thesis, it is aimed to obtain gas by gasifying prina and this gas is going to be burned to obtain electric energy. The waste heat generated during the burning process was used to evaporate the brine and wastewater. The cake obtained at the end of evaporation of wastewater was sent to the gasification together with the prina to obtain additional energy. In the last part of the study, the literature research was done for approximate investment costs and operating costs For example, when combined with prina gasification, wastewater treatment and brine treatment at 2 MW, the total investment cost is about $ 8.815.000 and net profit is 1.246.610. As a result, for the control of pollution arising from the olive farming sector, all wastes must be considered together and integrated management approach must be taken into consideration. It could be amortized itself in the short term in spite of the high initial investment costs. However; it is necessary to make it clear who will have authority and responsibility for integrated management. it is understood that the legal regulations to be carried out in the administrative sense for this purpose are important.