Abstract

Worldwide breweries are known to use large volumes of water. Between 10 and 20m3 of water yields 1m3 of beer. This translates to over 90% of wastewater. The world produced 1.94x108m3 of beer in 2018. Of the total production 1.48x107m3 of beer were produced from Africa with Uganda contributing up to 4.1x105m3. Uganda’s major producing industries being Uganda Breweries Limited and Nile Breweries Limited. Uganda’s brewery sector generates between 3.69x106 to 7.79x106m3 of wastewater annually that could otherwise be of importance. This wastewater is characterized by high organic matter content with COD, BOD and TSS ranging between 2,000 to 10,000mg L-1, 1,200 to 7,000mg L-1 and 2,901 to 3,000mg L-1 respectively. Whereas little information has been published regarding the current use of wastewater in Uganda by the Key players, elsewhere in the world the wastewater has been treated for re-use using Anaerobic Sequencing Batch Reactor and membrane bioreactors, for electricity generation using microbial fuel cell and for biogas production using Veolia Bio Bed Technology. The generated sludge has successfully been used as an Organic Fertilizer and a raw material for Organic Fertilizers production in different parts of the world. The process by-products such as spent grain, spent hops and surplus yeast have been used majorly in fertilizers and animal feeds. The purpose of this review article was to explore potential uses of the wastewater in that could apply for Uganda.

Keywords

Brewery, Economic value, Organic matter, Total soluble solids wastewater