Degradation of Carcinogenic Hydroquinone in Coal Gasification Wastewater by Using Anaerobic Shaker Test

Abstract

Coal gasification wastewater, as a typical industrial wastewater has poor biodegradability and high toxicity. In this paper, simple anaerobic shaker test was conducted to investigate the degradation of hydroquinone in coal gasification wastewater. Anaerobic sludge shaker test were run for 27, 50 and 73 days, the phenol concentration were adjusted to 300 mg/L and 500 mg/L with pH 7.5, respectively. The experimental results also showed that this system could effectively deal with COD and phenol removal and remain in a stable level when the operational parameters altered while the hydrolysis acidification at 45h is appropriate. Organics degradation and transformation of anaerobic coal gasification wastewater samples at 12h, 24h, 36h, 48h, and 60h were analyzed by GC/MS and it was found that hydrolysis acidification played an important role in degradation of methyl phenol, hydroquinone and refractory compounds. Therefore, the results illustrated that the simple anaerobic shaker process is an easy way for pollutant degradation and treat coal gasification wastewater effectively.