Eco-friendly and sustainable process for recovery of sulfate from paper mill mixed salt: Recycling of sulfate for dye fixation process.

Paper mill Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) ash contains a mixture of alkali metal chloride (34.2 %) and sulfate (84.2 %) which has serious negative effects on the environment and makes it more expensive and constrained to dispose ESP ash. Therefore, handling and recycling ESP ash demands extra thought when disposing of it. Present study, aimed to separate chloride and sulfate from ESP ash using electrochemical membrane technology. Three different concentrations of ESP ash solution such as 200 g L-1, 320 g L-1 and 450 g L-1 were used as the electrolyte. Ti/TiO2-IrO2-RuO2 and titanium (Ti) are used as anode and cathode respectively. Caustic and sulfate solutions were recovered at the respective compartments. The collected sulfate solution was dried by solar light to convert 99 % sulfate salts as confirmed by Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) analysis. Recovered sulfate salt was used for the dye fixing process, in which the colour fixing difference of ΔE value was about 2.10 and the strength of the dye was about 86.72 %. Therefore, the textile industry can repurpose the recovered sulfate salt for the dye fixing process.

Beyond dumping: New strategies in the separation of preservative salt from tannery waste mixed salt and its reuse for tannery industrial application.

The tannery effluent treatment plants produce tonnes of waste in the form of mixed salts containing sodium chloride, sulfate, calcium, and magnesium salts. Disposal of these mixed salts may create an environmental problem. The proposed method broadly consists of the separation of sodium chloride from reverse osmosis (RO) reject and raw-hide waste salt (preservative salt) of the tannery. This study used the physicochemical method to treat waste salt from tannery industrial waste. The addition of sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate improved calcium and magnesium removal efficiency in the RO reject and preservative waste salts. The optimization of the sodium salt of hydroxide and carbonate is very important to remove an unwanted substance from waste salt. The sodium chloride was recovered, and the purity was about >98% which was successfully reused as preservative salt as well as in the pickling process in the tannery industry.

Enhanced degradation of eletrooxidized textile effluent by petroleum degrading Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MTCC No.1201) at compressed gas pressure.

The textile dyeing industry produces large volumes of wastewater during dyeing processes where the major step includes the color removal and COD removal. In the present study, the combined electrooxidation process and a novel biological degradation at high compressed gas pressure were studied. The removal of color in the real textile dye effluent was achieved by electrooxidation with Titanium Substrate Insoluble anode and titanium as cathode through generation of hypochlorite. The hypochlorite produced during the electrooxidation was removed by exposing the solution to direct sunlight. The impact of compressed atmospheric condition on the degradation of organics by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MTCC No.1201, GenBank Acc. No KC545414) was studied. The compressed gas pressure condition increases the level of dissolved gas in the liquid phase and exerts the pressure on the growing cells in the liquid phase. Interesting synchronization between the utilization of oxygen by active microbial cells and the dissolution of oxygen in the water from gas phase was observed which enhanced the bacterial degradation process. It should be mentioned here that the P. aeruginosa was grown without addition of nutrients. The compressed atmospheric pressure enhances the bacterial proliferation, EPS production and COD reduction in the electrooxidized effluent. FTIR and HPLC reveal the degradation of organics in the compressed pressure condition.

A two-step electrochemical method for separating Mg(OH)2 and CaCO3: Application to RO reject and polluted groundwater.

The process of removing Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions typically results in the co-precipitation of Ca2+ and Mg2+ along with other salt waste. To improve water treatment efficiency towards a zero-waste goal, it is crucial to separate Ca2+ and Mg2+, and recover them in their purified form. This study proposes a two-step electrochemical approach that separately recovers Ca2+ as CaCO3 and Mg2+ as Mg(OH)2. The first step uses an undivided cell with 3D electrodes and controlled flow directions to selectively precipitate CaCO3 on the electrode, keeping the cell removal efficiency. The second step employs a two-compartment cell with a cationic exchange membrane to recover Mg(OH)2. This approach was evaluated on RO reject water with high Ca2+ to Mg2+ ratio and industrial effluent-polluted groundwater with a low ratio. Treatment of domestic RO reject water using undivided cell specifically recovered 64% of CaCO3, although the low conductivity of the RO reject water limited further Mg2+ recovery. Conversely, treating industrial effluent-polluted groundwater with this two-step process successfully recovered 80% of CaCO3 and 94% of Mg(OH)2. SEM, EDAX, and XRD analysis confirmed the quality of the recovered products.

Electrochemical oxidation with the aerobic pretreatment process for sulfate-rich tannery effluent.

The anaerobic feed of tannery effluent was treated using a new invention of an integrated approach: electrochemical oxidation with aerobic pretreatment, which reduces the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and sulfur/sulfide gas formation. Bacterial consortium was used in the present study isolated from a common effluent treatment plant (CETP). Microbial community analysis of anaerobic feed of tannery effluent (AFTE) was done by next generation sequencing. Under aerobic treatment, 79% and 85% of COD reduction were achieved during 3rd and 5th days of the aerobic process. The electrochemical oxidation process was applied for 60 min to reduce the remaining COD using the current density of 20 mA/cm2. Ti-TiO2/IrO2/RuO2-coated mesh and titanium sheet were used as anode and cathode respectively in an electrochemical reactor. A separate electrooxidation experiment was also carried out with galvanostatic mode of constant current density (20 mA/cm2) which enhanced the duration of electrochemical oxidation up to 13 h for complete reduction of COD concentration. UV-Vis and NMR spectroscopy were used to confirm the degradation of organic matter in the tannery effluent during aerobic and electrooxidation processes, where aerobic bacterial degradation is significant. The presence of mixed salt chloride and sulfate was recovered and the elemental composition was confirmed by EDAX analysis.

A membrane electroflotation process for recovery of recyclable chromium(III) from tannery spent liquor effluent.

A two-compartment membrane electroflotation reactor has been demonstrated for recovery of recyclable chromium(III) from tannery spent liquor effluent. Dimensionally stable RuO2/TiO2-Ti and Ti were used as anode and cathode, respectively. The spent liquor effluent was used as catholyte and 0.01 N H2SO4 used as anolyte which was separated by Nafion 117 membrane. About 98% of chromium(III) was recovered and the removal efficiency correlated with the presence of organics in the effluent. The advantage of two-compartment membrane electroflotation process is capable of removing chromium(III) without oxidising it into chromium(VI) in chloride containing tannery spent liquor effluent. The mechanism of chromium(III) removal has been discussed. The recovered Cr(OH)3 was successfully demonstrated for tanning of cowhide.

"Green technology": Bio-stimulation by an electric field for textile reactive dye contaminated agricultural soil.

The aim of the study is to degrade pollutants as well as to increase the fertility of agricultural soil by starch enhancing electrokinetic (EKA) and electro-bio-stimulation (EBS) processes. Starch solution was used as an anolyte and voltage gradient was about 0.5V/cm. The influence of bacterial mediated process was evaluated in real contaminated farming soil followed by pilot scale experiment. The in-situ formation of ß-cyclodextrin from starch in the treatments had also influence on the significant removal of the pollutants from the farming soil. The conductivity of the soil was effectively reduced from 15.5dS/m to 1.5dS/m which corroborates well with the agricultural norms. The bio-stimulation was confirmed by the increase of the phosphorus content in the treated soil. Finally, phytotoxicity assays demonstrated the viability of the developed technique for soil remediation because plant germination percentage was higher in the treated soil in comparison to untreated soil.

Combined electrochemical, sunlight-induced oxidation and biological process for the treatment of chloride containing textile effluent.

This study presents a combined electrochemical, sunlight-induced oxidation and biological process for the treatment of textile effluent. In the first step, RuO2-TiO2/Ti and Titanium were used as the electrodes in EO process and color removal was achieved in 40 min at an applied current density of 20 mA cm-2. The EO process generated about 250 mg L-1 of active chlorine which hampered the subsequent biological treatment process. Thus, in the second step, sun light-induced photolysis (SLIP) is explored to remove hypochlorite present in the EO treated effluent. In the third step, the SLIP treated effluent was fed to laccase positive bacterial consortium for biological process. To assess the effect of SLIP in the overall process, experiments were carried out with and without SLIP process. In experiments without SLIP, sodium thiosulfate was used to remove active chlorine. HPLC analysis showed that SLIP integrated experiments achieved an overall dye component degradation of 71%, where as only 22% degradation was achieved in the absence of SLIP process. The improvement in degradation with SLIP process is attributed to the presence of ClO radicals which detected by EPR analysis. The oxidation of organic molecules during process was confirmed by FT-IR and GC-MS analysis.

An integrated (electro- and bio-oxidation) approach for remediation of industrial wastewater containing azo-dyes: Understanding the degradation mechanism and toxicity assessment.

A hybrid approach for the remediation of recalcitrant dye wastewater is proposed. The chlorine-mediated electrochemical oxidation of real textile effluents and synthetic samples (using Ti/IrO2-RuO2-TiO2 anodes), lead to discoloration by 92% and 89%, respectively, in 100min, without significant mineralization. The remediation was obtained through biodegradation, after removing the residual bio-toxic active chlorine species via sunlight exposition. Results show that the electrochemical discoloration enhances the effluent biodegradability with about 90% COD removal employing acclimatized naphthalene-degrading bacterial consortia, within 144h. Based on results obtained through FT-IR and GC-MS, it is likely that azo group stripping and oxidative cleavage of dyes occur due to the nucleophilic attack of active chlorine species during electro-oxidation. This leads to generation of aromatic intermediates which are further desulfonated, deaminated or oxidized only at their functional groups. These aromatic intermediates were mineralized into simpler organic acids and aldehydes by bacterial consortia. Phyto-toxicity trials on Vigna radiata confirmed the toxic nature of the untreated dye solutions. An increase in root and shoot development was observed with the electrochemically treated solutions, the same was higher in case of bio-treated solutions. Overall, obtained results confirm the capability of the proposed hybrid oxidation scheme for the remediation of textile wastewater.

Electrokinetic remediation of inorganic and organic pollutants in textile effluent contaminated agricultural soil.

The discharge from the dyeing industries constitutes unfixed dyes, inorganic salts, heavy metal complexes etc., which spoil the surrounding areas of industrial sites. The present article reports the use of direct current electrokinetic technique for the treatment of textile contaminated soil. Impressed direct current voltage of 20 V facilitates the dye/metal ions movement in the naturally available dye contaminated soil towards the opposite electrode by electromigration. IrO2­RuO2­TiO2/Ti was used as anode and Ti used as cathode. UV­Visible spectrum reveals that higher dye intensity was nearer to the anode. Ni, Cr and Pb migration towards the cathode and migration of Cu, SO42− and Cl− towards anode were noticed. Chemical oxygen demand in soil significantly decreased upon employing electrokinetic. This technology may be exploited for faster and eco-friendly removal of dye in soil environment.