Biological treatment and ultrafiltration of woodchip pre-hydrolysis liquor from dissolving pulp mills

Abstract

Abstract Dissolving pulps could be considered as the future biorefineries, which normally generate liquor during the wood chip pre-hydrolysis (PHL). PHL has high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Mills do not have efficient means for disposal of PHL, being in general burned in the recovery boiler with a high cost due to its low consistency. The objectives of this work were to evaluate i) the biotreatability of PHL and the effects it would have on a kraft mill effluent biological treatment plant and ii) the use of ultrafiltration (UF) membrane to treat the PHL prior to biological treatment. PHL was generated into lab with a hydrothermal process and was mixed with kraft pulp mill effluent in different proportions and added to sequencing batch reactors (SBRs). The SBRs achieved high rates of COD removal (>75 %). However, treated effluent COD increased with the increase in PHL dose. This treatment using UF membranes reduced the COD load. Biotreatability of the UF permeate was higher than that of PHL. UF retentate, with 28 % of the volume and a much higher solids content than the initial PHL, would have a significantly lower evaporation energy demand if sent to the black liquor evaporators.