Influence of Integrated Membrane Treatment on the Phytotoxicity of Wastewater from the Coke Industry

Abstract

In this paper, coke wastewater that had passed through biological and integrated membrane processes (filtration on sand bed—reverse osmosis) was chosen to assess the phytotoxicity of selected industrial wastewater with regard to the test plant—Vicia faba. An innovative research technique in vitro test was conducted in a large scale phytothrone chamber on two matrices: cotton and Murashige and Skoog Basal Medium (MSBM). The toxicity of wastewater was evaluated for samples: (1) treated in the treatment plant by biological processes, (2) filtrated through a sand bed and filtrated (3) reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. The results showed that there is a noticeable correlation between increasing concentrations of wastewater and seed germination of the test plant. Although the wastewater collected from the coke plant was treated biologically, it showed very high levels of germination inhibition (90–98% for cotton matrix and 92–100% for MSBM matrix) and strong toxic effects. The wastewater collected from the coke plant showed a significantly greater phytotoxic effect compared with those obtained from the effluent treated on a sand bed and in RO. However, wastewater, even after treatment on a sand bed (reduction of COD—39%, TN—46%, TOC—42%, TC—47%, SS—50%, 16PAHs—53%), was still toxic and germination inhibition was in the range of 24–48% for the cotton matrix and 14–54% for the MSBM matrix. The toxicity of wastewater treated in the membrane process was the lowest (reduction of COD—85%, TN—95%, TOC—85%, TC—86%, SS—98%, 16PAHs—67%). The germination inhibition was in the range of 4–10% for the cotton matrix and 2–12% for the MSBM matrix. These samples are classified as non-toxic or slightly toxic to the model plant. The present study highlights the necessity of monitoring not only the basic physical and chemical indicators (including the level of toxic substances as PAHs), but also their effect on the test organisms in wastewater samples.

Trends, insights and effects of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC) implementation in the light of the Polish coastal zone eutrophication

“…The basic tool for achieving this goal were the legal requirements developed practically in all countries regarding the conditions for wastewater discharge into receiving waters, which are systematically becoming stricter in terms of nutrient content (Bohman 2018 ; Preisner et al 2020b ). This forced the use of advanced technologies for their removal in complex and expensive wastewater treatment systems (Surratt and Aumen 2014 ; Smol et al 2018 ). It is a well-known fact that mainly the dissolved inorganic forms of nutrients are directly available to aquatic vegetation, while in rare cases, also some organic compounds (Czerwionka 2016 ).…”

Surface Water Pollution by Untreated Municipal Wastewater Discharge Due to a Sewer Failure

“…In the present study, especially high N values were observed, which in the river MZ ranged from 6.44 to 28.50 mg/L in terms of TN and from 3.63 to 20.10 mg/L in terms of N-NH 4 . Inorganic N forms such as highly bioavailable N-NH 4 are usually efficiently removed by the wastewater treatment processes (Farazaki and Gikas 2019;Kowalewski et al 2016;Smol et al 2018) since it causes oxygen deficiency in the wastewater receiver due to high oxygen demand for its oxidation (Fuhrmeister et al 2015). A study from China on urban river N pollution (Zhang et al 2015) confirms a sharp decrease in DO concentration with the increase of N-NH 4 concentration.…”

Advances in treatment of coking wastewater – a state of art review

“…The phytotoxicity of coking wastewater treated with biological means showed higher germination inhibition in comparison to the sample treated with reverse osmosis (Smol et al 2018). The study highlighted the necessity of monitoring the toxicity degree of coking wastewater.…”

“…Interestingly, it was observed that photodegradation as an advance treatment increases the toxicity of wastewater on maize development. We can deduce from the studies that coking wastewater is one the most toxic industrial wastewaters, showing toxicity in all forms such as bio-toxicity, ecotoxicity, acute toxicity and genotoxicity (Zhou et al 2015;Na et al 2017;Smol et al 2018). Therefore, integrated advanced treatment using the physicochemical-biochemical combined process is necessary for reducing the toxicity of coking wastewater (Liu et al 2017b).…”