A research program has been conducted to optimize the removal of suspended solid, anionic components and dissolved materials from deinking mill effluent, specifically the alkaline wastewater loop. The chemical characteristics of the additives investigated were the molecular weight of anionic and cationic flocculants, their charge density variations and the molecular structure of the chemical components. Polyaluminum chloride (PAC) in high dosage showed enhanced dissolved solid removal efficiency, however, the chitosan biopolymer and the bioenzyme explored in this study were not effective. The optimized chemical combination is apparently not cost effective in the present state-of-art DAF process.