Treatment of distillery wastewater by the nano-scale zero-valent iron and the supported nano-scale zero-valent iron.

The treatment of wastewater from the distillery industry was carried out by using nano-scale- and supported nano-scale zero-valent iron at a laboratory scale and ambient temperature. Effects of dilution, pH, mixing rate, zero-valent iron dosage, and amount of support for the zero-valent iron were investigated. All parameters had a significant effect on the removal efficiency of all investigated pollutants. Increasing the number of dilutions and the nano-scale zero-valent iron dosage led to the increase of removal efficiency of pollutants. Higher removal efficiency was achieved in an acidic initial pH of wastewater. The reduction of all pollutants was limited by the kinetics of the pollutant destruction/reduction by nano-scale zero-valent iron particles at a mixing rate greater than 170 rpm. At optimum condition, greater than 95, 94, and 64% of color, chemical oxygen demand, and biochemical oxygen demand were removed, respectively, within 6 hours. Additionally, the presence of a support had a significant effect on pollutant removal.