Characterization of Major and Minor Organic Pollutants in Wastewaters from Coal Gasification Processes

Abstract

Abstract In order to investigate the feasibility of anaerobic biological treatment for wastewaters generated from thermal gasification processes of coal, a characterization program was implemented whose major effort consisted in the elucidation of specific organic constituents contained in the wastewater. Solvent extraction in acid and base conditions followed by glass capillary gas chromatography in combination with several detectors (i.e., FID, NPD, and MS-DS) were employed for the investigation of major and minor “extractable” organic constituents. Direct aqueous injection on a polar glass capillary column (i.e., OV-351) was used for the major “nonsolvent extractable” organic constituents amenable to GC. The identity of 28 organic compounds was confirmed by comparison with pure standards. Phenol, the three cresol isomers, 5,5-dimethyl-hydantoin and 5-methyl,5-ethylhydantoin were identified as major wastewater constituents. Several substituted phenols (e.g., methyl, dimethyl, trimethyl, methylethyl, hyd...