ABSTRACT
This study investigated the ability of acid treated flute reed to adsorb color (dye) from synthetic reactive dye solutions, and actual dyeing and printing textile wastewaters in a laboratory scale fixed bed column. The effects of particle size, initial reactive dye concentration, bed depth and flow rate on adsorption performances were examined. The results from experiments with synthetic reactive dye solutions showed that the volume treated (until the breakthrough occurred) increased with decreasing particle size, influent reactive dye concentration and flow rate, and increasing bed depth. The bed depth service time model was suitable for describing the experimental data. The treated flute reed was able to reduce color efficiently, 99% for dyeing textile wastewater with ten adsorption columns in series and 78% for printing textile wastewater with a single adsorption column. The difference in the numbers of columns used for the two types of actual textile wastewater led to a substantial discrepancy in suspended solids removal, 99% for dyeing wastewater and 12% for printing wastewater. Similar pH and chemical oxygen demand (COD) results were obtained for the two types of textile wastewater. The acid pretreatment of flute reed resulted in dramatic decreases in pH after the adsorption and very acidic effluents (pH 3). Increases of COD after the adsorption due to organic leaching from the treated flute reed were observed. A different pretreatment method to solve these pH and COD problems is needed before flute reed can be used in practice.
