Comparative studies for the treatment of industrial effluents employing advanced processes: towards enhancement of environmental performance

Abstract

The investigation was inspired by the declaration of critically polluted industrial zones in India. It was also reported that most of the Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) are non-compliant due to higher COD values in discharge than regulatory norms. Furthermore, most of the literature has not reported the efficacy of advanced wastewater technologies for real industrial effluent. Thus, this research focused on field trials of scalable advanced wastewater technologies in Vatva Industrial Estate (VIE), Ahmedabad. The potential of physico-chemical and advanced treatment processes are explored for applicability in industrial wastewater treatment. Thus, for this research, three industries from each sector, i.e., textile processing, dyes, and dye intermediates, a total of nine different industries were chosen. A sufficient volume of effluent was collected from each industry for detailed investigations. The initial COD loading observed was in the range of 68 to 7074, 30 to 896, and 100 to 1541 kg COD/day for textile processing, dyes, and dye intermediates, respectively, with significant variation in the qualitative profiles. The collected effluent was treated by electrocoagulation and Fenton's reagent in batch scale reactors. The batch scale reactors for both the technologies were of 1L size. The results of treatability studies represented that Fenton's reagent performed better than the electrocoagulation process for most of the industries selected in this study. This research provides insight for improvement in the environmental performance of the individual industries in general and CETPs in particular.

Comprehensive Review on Waste Water Treatment Technologies with Special Emphasize on Biological Treatments

“…Polluted water or contaminated water may be defined as water containing excessive hazardous substances or compounds which makes it unsuitable for cooking, drinking, bathing and other uses [8][9][10] . Pollution of water is mainly caused by human activity and release of the pollutants from industrial dumps, oil spillages, chemical waste, pesticides, sewage leakages, heavy metals, animal wastes, worn sediments, littering, chemical fertilizers, herbicides etc [11][12][13][14][15] . Wastewater discharged from various sectors can be broadly classified into many different types like domestic wastewater, agricultural wastewater, sewage wastewater, storm run-off wastewater, and industrial wastewater.…”

“…The parameters are being set based on the quantity of pollutants which can be safely incorporated in specific water bodies. For example, Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) in Europe, the total maximum daily load (TMDL) in US Clean Water Act, and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in India, have set minimum acceptable standards for the disposal of industrial and municipal wastes [11][12][13][14][15][16] . To minimize the pollution many treatment plants are also developed where use of chemical, electrochemical, biological and physical processes converts the water into potable water 22, 23 .…”