Combination of ozonation, activated carbon, and biological aerated filter for advanced treatment of dyeing wastewater for reuse.

Laboratorial scale experiments were performed to investigate and evaluate the performance and removal characteristics of organics, color, and genotoxicity by an integrated process including ozonation, activated carbon (AC), and biological aerated filter (BAF) for recycling biotreated dyeing wastewater (BTDW) collected from a cotton textile factory. Influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the range of 156 - 252 mg/L, 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) of 13.5 - 21.7 mg/L, and color of 58 - 76° were observed during the 20-day continuous operation. Outflows with average COD of 43 mg/L, BOD5 of 6.6 mg/L, and color of 5.6° were obtained after being decontaminated by the hybrid system with ozone dosage of 0.25 mg O3applied/mg COD0, 40 min ozonation contact time, 30 min hydraulic retention time (HRT) for AC treatment, and 2.5 h HRT for BAF treatment. More than 82 % of the genotoxicity of BTDW was eliminated in the ozonation unit. The genotoxicity of the BAF effluent was less than 1.33 μg 4-nitroquinoline-N-oxide/L. Ozonation could change the organics molecular structures, destroy chromophores, increase the biodegradability, and obviously reduce the genotoxicity of BTDW. Results showed that the combined process could guarantee water reuse with high quality.