Reuse of effluent discharged from tannery wastewater treatment plants by powdered activated carbon and ultrafiltration combined reverse osmosis system

We evaluate the applicability of a reverse osmosis (RO) system that combines powdered activated carbon (PAC) and ultrafiltration (UF) to treat the effluent discharged from tannery wastewater treatment plants. Conventional treatment processes such as neutralization, clariflocculation, and biological processes are used to clean the effluent before feeding to the PAC and UF combined RO system. The efficiency of the combined system was evaluated using the chemical oxygen demand Mn (CODMn), color, pH, turbidity, total nitrogen, total phosphate, and conductivity. The PAC was effective in greatly reducing the CODMn and color. The turbidity and silt density index of the UF permeate satisfied the water quality indices required for the RO feed. The RO system was constantly maintained at approximately 75% RO recovery, and the RO permeate satisfied the water quality requirements for reusing the processed water. Therefore, the PAC-UF combined RO system can be used to process effluent discharged from tannery wastewater treatment plants for reuse.