Industrial Wastewater COD Degradation Technology – Taiwan Solar Cell Plant

Abstract

The energy crisis has led to continuous cost increases for petroleum, and global climate change has exacerbated the environmental crisis. To cope with the energy crisis, many industrially developed countries have promoted photovoltaic cells as the most promising green energy alternative. However, their manufacture produces enormous amounts of pollutants that significantly impact the environment. To balance green energy and the environment, the manufacturing processes of photovoltaic cells should be environmentally benign. Therefore, a proper pollution prevention management strategy and control technologies should be developed accordingly. To adapt the growth of photovoltaic cell industries in Asia to the global green trend and contribute to environmental protection, we focused on the treatment of wastewater from plants producing photovoltaic cells. A biotechnology process was used to culture microorganisms based on wastewater characteristics from photovoltaic industries. This biotreatment system was integrated with anerobic and aerobic biotreatments, which not only are capable of treating high chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentrations in influents but also can remove nitrate nitrogen. This process is able to remove more than 85% of the COD from influent streams. The advantages are that less sludge produced, less space required, and operating costs are lower. This study successfully established an in situ pilot plant capable of treating influent COD concentrations of 3000 mg L−1 and producing effluent COD concentrations of 100–400 mg L−1. The COD removal ratio was about 70–85% and can serve as a model reference for practical industrial treatment.