Experimental Study on Color Removal from Textile Industry Wastewater Using the Rotating Biological Contactor

Abstract

Textile industry wastewater treatment is a cause for concern due to its intense color and high COD, which makes it difficult to treat it by conventional treatment options. Also, many of the dyes used in the industry fall under the category of hazardous wastes and are known to be toxic to microorganisms and aquatic life forms. An experimental study was conducted to observe the performance of Rotating Biological Contactor (RBC) system for color and COD removal from textile industry wastewaters. The RBC system could achieve up to 90±5% removal of color and 95±3% removal of COD in all four stages of RBC under optimum operating conditions. The first two stages of the RBC showed up to 75±2% of color and 85±2% of COD removal. The biofilm study concluded that a mixed culture of microorganisms (both bacteria as well as fungi) was responsible for the treatment of textile industry wastewater and the recovery of the RBC system could be very fast in case of any shock-loading occurred.