TREATMENT OF TEXTILE WASTE-WATER BY OZONATION IN A PACKED-BED REACTOR

Ozonation experiments in a packed bed reactor were conducted to investigate the efficiency of this continuous process in reducing the color and chemical oxygen demand of the textile wastewater. It is observed that decolorization can be achieved in less than five minutes in all cases tested due primarily to good countercurrent air/liquid contact. By combining with chemical coagulation and aerobic biological process, the continuous ozonation process is able to consistently reduce the chemical oxygen demAnd of the textile wastewaters by 80% or more. In the combined process, chemical coagulation was found capable of effectively removing most dissolved and suspended solids while ozonation was primarily responsible for decomposing the highly structured dye molecules into small molecule organics and rendering them more easily biodegraded for the following aerobic biological process. Preliminary economic analysis of the combined continuous process also indicates significantly beneficial advantages over the conventional treatment method.