Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the adequacy of wastewater treatment stages used to treat wastewater from the textile industry in relevance to irrigation water standards. Results showed that primary and secondary treatment stages that are applied at the textile factory are not enough to meet the standards and that tertiary treatment is required. Two different processes a destructive removal process and a physicochemcal process has been applied. The Fenton process was selected among the advanced oxidation processes, aiming to destroy organic compounds remaining after the activated sludge treatment. The Fenton process was capable in removing about 65% of the COD left after the biological treatment, and the adsorption process on the other hand removed about 50% of the COD left after the biological treatment. More than 95% and 40% of Pt-Co colour unit has been removed by both the Fenton or adsorption process, respectively. The electrical conductivity values were dropped to about 2300 μS.cm-1 after adsorption process only and to about 180 μS.cm-1 after adsorption and nano-filtration and 56 μS.cm-1 after adsorption and reverse osmosis combined processes. The electrical conductivity values were increased after the Fenton process due to iron addition etc. during the oxidation process, but decreased to about 250 μS.cm-1 after Fenton and nano-filtration and 48 μS.cm-1 after Fenton and reverse osmosis combined processes. Laboratory studies showed that advanced oxidation methods combined with membrane technology are appropriate methods to achieve the required standards.