Analysis of the best available techniques for wastewaters from a denim manufacturing textile mill.

The present study was undertaken as the first plant scale application and evaluation of Best Available Techniques (BAT) within the context of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control/Industrial Emissions Directive to a textile mill in Turkey. A "best practice example" was developed for the textile sector; and within this context, BAT requirements for one of the World's leading denim manufacturing textile mills were determined. In order to achieve a sustainable wastewater management; firstly, a detailed wastewater characterization study was conducted and the possible candidate wastewaters to be reused within the mill were identified. A wastewater management strategy was adopted to investigate the possible reuse opportunities for the dyeing and finishing process wastewaters along with the composite mill effluent. In line with this strategy, production processes were analysed in depth in accordance with the BAT Reference Document not only to treat the generated wastewaters for their possible reuse, but also to reduce the amount of water consumed and wastewater generated. As a result, several applicable BAT options and strategies were determined such as reuse of dyeing wastewaters after treatment, recovery of caustic from alkaline finishing wastewaters, reuse of biologically treated composite mill effluent after membrane processes, minimization of wash water consumption in the water softening plant, reuse of concentrate stream from reverse osmosis plant, reducing water consumption by adoption of counter-current washing in the dyeing and finishing processes. The adoption of the selected in-process BAT options for the minimization of water use provided a 30% reduction in the total specific water consumption of the mill. The treatability studies adopted for both segregated and composite wastewaters indicated that nanofiltration is satisfactory in meeting the reuse criteria for all the wastewater streams considered.

High-rate sulphidogenic fluidised-bed treatment of metal-containing wastewater at high temperature.

The applicability of fluidised-bed reactor (FBR) based sulphate reducing bioprocess was investigated for the treatment of iron containing (40-90 mg/L) acidic wastewater at 65 degrees C. The FBR was inoculated with sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) originally enriched from a hot mining environment. Ethanol or acetate was supplemented as carbon and electron source for the SRB. A rapid startup with 99.9, 46 and 29% ethanol, sulphate and acetate removals, in respective order, was observed even after 6 days. Iron was almost completely removed with a rate of 90 mg/L.d. The feed pH was decreased gradually from its initial value of 6 to around 3.7 during 100 days of operation. The wastewater pH of 4.3-4.4 was neutralised by the alkalinity produced in acetate oxidation and the average effluent pH was 7.8 +/- 0.8. Although ethanol removal was complete, acetate accumulated. Later the FBR was fed with acetate only. Although acetate was present in the reactor for 295 days, its oxidation rates did not improve, which may be due to low growth rate and poor attachment ability of acetate oxidising SRB. Hence, the oxidation of acetate is the rate limiting step in the sulphidogenic ethanol oxidation by the thermophilic SRB.

Effects of 2,4-dichlorophenol on activated sludge.

The effects of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) on both acclimated and unacclimated activated sludge were investigated in batch reactors. The IC(50) values on the basis of maximum specific growth rate ( micro(m)), percent chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency and sludge activity were found to be 72, 60 and 47 mg l(-1), respectively, for unacclimated culture. The percent COD removal efficiencies of unacclimated culture were affected adversely, even at low concentrations, whereas culture acclimated to 75 mg 2,4-DCP l(-1) could tolerate about 200 mg 2,4-DCP l(-1)on the basis of COD removal efficiency. Although yield coefficient values of unacclimated culture increased surprisingly to very high values with the addition of 2,4-DCP, a linear decrease with respect to 2,4-DCP concentrations was observed for acclimated culture. Although no removal was observed with unacclimated culture, almost complete removal of 2,4-DCP up to a concentration of 148.7 mg l(-1) was observed with acclimated culture. It was showed that the culture could use 2,4-DCP as sole organic carbon source, although higher removal efficiencies in the presence of a readily degradable substrate were observed. Culture acclimated to 4-chlorophenol used 2,4-DCP as sole organic carbon source better than those acclimated to 2,4-DCP.