Paper Title
Optimization of Acid Cracking Method for Olive Mill Wastewater Pre-Treatment Acid Cracking Method for Olive Mill Wastewater

Abstract
In this study, optimization of acid cracking method for olive mill wastewater (OMW) pretreatment was aimed by using different acids (HCl and H2SO4) with different pH and reaction times. Initially, HCl acid was used to investigate the influence of different pH (1.5-4) and reaction time (15-150 min) on the color, phenol, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal from OMW. Further, similar conditions were applied to OMW but using H2SO4. The color removal increased with decreasing pH using HCl acid, corresponding to 60% which was maximum value obtained during this study. Additionally, decreasing pH from 4 to 1.5 resulted in increasing effluent COD. COD and phenol removal efficiencies were around 37%, and 45% in the operational condition using HCl, respectively. The results indicated that the best acid cracking performance in terms of color, COD, and phenol removal, was achieved at pH 1.5 and 15 min reaction time with HCI acid. Key words - Acid-cracking; olive oil wastewater; hydrochloride acid; sulfuric acid