Chloro-Organics in Papermill Effluent: Identification and Removal by Sequencing Batch Biofilm Reactor

Abstract

Effluents from paper mills are among major sources of aquatic pollution and may be toxic since they contain chlorinated phenolic compounds which are measured as adsorbable organic halides (AOX). In this work, removal of chlorophenol was investigated using a Sequencing Batch Biofilm Reactor (SBBR) with Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) as a growth media. Wastewater for this study was obtained from treated effluent outlet of a papermill in Selangor. Treatment of the papermill secondary effluent shows that SBBR process, with a combination of adsorption and biodegradation, gave a good removal of pentachlorophenol (PCP), on average, about 70%. The growth kinetic parameters obtained were: YH= 0.6504 mg biomass/mg PCP, dH = 6.50A—10-5 h-1, I¼h= 0.00315 h-1 and Ks= 5.82 mg PCP L-1. These show that the SBBR system is suitable to be operated at long SRTs. © 2007 Asian Network for Scientific Information.