Effectiveness of Treatment Technologies for Wastewater Pollution Generated by Indian Pulp Mills

Abstract

India has a large number of paper manufacturing units, with mills varying in size of operations and type of product, scattered all over the length and breadth of the country. Present study deals with the survey of four different pulp and paper mills (Mill A, Mill B, Mill C and Mill D) in India, differing in their scale of operation as well as raw material usage. Physico-chemical characterization of wastewaters produced by different processing units like digestor house liquors, bleaching section, paper machine backwaters, combined inlet to the ETP and outlet to ETP, for all the four mills, was conducted. Different parameters like pH, Color, COD, BOD, percent Na, SAR, TDS and Total hardness were analyzed and compared. Highly significant differences were thus found between all the processing units of all four mills with p values < 0.01. This evaluation showed that though these mills have effluent treatment facilities installed in their premises, improvements are still needed to increase their efficiencies for treating the discharged wastewaters.

Review on recent developments on pulp and paper mill wastewater treatment

“…The volume and properties of P&P wastewater and related pollutants depend upon several factors, such as production scale, the raw materials used, and applied production technologies (Tiku et al, 2007). Long time ago (beginning of 20th century), production of a ton of paper would require consumption of 500-1000 m 3 of water (Holik, 2006).…”

“…Although small and medium pulp and paper mills (o100t/d) normally generate smaller quantities of wastewater, compared with large mills (4100t/d), they produce a higher pollution load (Garg, 2012). This is mainly due to the fact that most of small and some of medium scale P&P mills do not have an infrastructure for chemical recovery and they discharge them directly into the produced effluents (Tewari et al, 2009;Tiku et al, 2007).…”

Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation: A Review of Pulp and Paper Industry Practices and Opportunities

“…Bajpai and Bajpai (1994) reviewed strategies for the removal of color from P&P mill wastewater. Various articles have focused on the performance and "best available technology" for treating P&P mill wastewater in different regions (Lescot and Jappinen 1994;Hammar and Rydholm 1972;Gehm 1973;Rajvaidya and Markandey 1998;European Commission 2001;Demel et al 2003;Tiku et al 2007;Menezes et al 2010;Zhu et al 2012;BREF 2015). Regarding advanced oxidation systems applicable as a primary or a tertiary treatment, the review by Bautista et al (2008) gives excellent descriptions of Fenton (iron/ hydrogen peroxide) wastewater treatment systems, though P&P applications are not considered.…”

Influence of Long Term Irrigation with Pulp and Paper Mill Effluent on the Bacterial Community Structure and Catabolic Function in Soil

“…India has 406 registered pulp and paper mills [4], which are especially large consumer of fresh water (100-250 m 3 / ton paper). With practically all of this water reappearing as effluent (72-225 m 3 /ton paper), a large amount of treatment and disposal is required [5].…”