Biological wastewater treatment harnesses the action microorganisms using an effective system to clean water for proper disposal or recycle. Sugar mills can adopt aerobic treatment and lagoons for the treatment of process condensate. Lagoons, which use natural microbes from surroundings, typically occupy large area, have high retention time and less efficient. Furthermore, it leads to accumulation of sulfides which turn the water black. Aerobic treatment processes include aeration tanks, oxidation ditches, activated sludge, trickling filters, etc. The ‘activated sludge’ process, which may be suitable for treating low strength wastewater streams such as process condensate. An advantage of using biological treatment is that apart from reducing COD/BOD levels, it can simultaneously also remove other inorganic pollutants such as sulphates, nitrates, ammonia and chlorides

Chemical methods include chemical separation such precipitation, coagulation, flocculation, solvent extraction, ion-exchange process and chemical oxidation, and other chemical reactions which destroy or remove the pollutants from wastewater. Most of the chemical separation process may not be techno-economically suitable for treatment of sugar mill process condensate due its inherent characteristics. Possibly, ion-exchange process can be used to treat the condensate although it is more suitable for water softening and metal ions removal.