Treatment of bleach plant effluent in anaerobic reactor and advanced oxidation processes

Author(s)

Adela Tatiana Rodriguez Chaparro

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC/SBD)
• Defense date: 2010-01-07

Examining board members

Eduardo Cleto Pires; Eugenio Foresti; Ann Honor Mounteer; Gladys Cecilia Vidal Saez; Marcelo Zaiat

• Advisor: Eduardo Cleto Pires

Abstract

Removal of biodegradable and non biodegradable organic matter present in kraft pulp mill effluent was investigated integrating an anaerobic biological process and advanced oxidation processes based on ozone. The experiments were carried out using two different Brazilian pulp mill. The bench scale Horizontal Anaerobic Immobilized Sludge Bioreactor (HAIS) was operated during 418 days; subsequently the biotreated effluent was oxidized applying ozone and ozone/UV in batch regime. The results show that the treatment sequence, anaerobic process + advanced oxidation processes based on ozone, results in removal of both organic matter biodegradable and non-biodegradable measured as chemical oxidation demand (COD), dissolved organic carbon (COd), adsorbable organic halides (AOX), acid soluble lignin (ASL) and absorbance values in the UV-VIS spectrum (i.e. UV215, UV205, UV280, VIS346). Ecotoxicological tests using Daphnia similis and Ceriodaphnia sp. confirmed that bleached kraft pulp mill is toxic to aquatic organisms. Moreover, genotoxicity tests with meristematic cells of Allium cepa (i.e. common onion) roots show that this type of effluent results in mutagenic, genotoxicological and citotoxicological activities. It is to be highlighted however that both toxicological and genotoxicological effects are closely related to the biodegradable organic matter, thus, after the anaerobic processes the removal of these effects occur, concomitant to reductions is chemical oxygen demand (55 \'+ OU -\' 9%) and dissolved organic carbon (57 \'+ OU -\' 7%). It was also observed that after ozone/UV application, both the chronic toxicity and genotoxicity activity were statically significant if compared with the negative control, although the Zahn Wellens test revealed that this effluent had the highest biodegradability. These results confirmed that biodegradable organic matter could be related with toxic and genotoxic effects. In the case of ozone application alone this behavior was not observed. (AU)