PACT^TM process for treatment of kraft mill effluent

The PACT^TM process (powdered activated carbon addition to the activated sludge process) was evaluated for the treatment of Kraft pulp mill wastewater in a series of bench scale experiments. Possibly due to the relatively low strength wastewater, the PACT^TM process with carbon doses between 0.5 and 1.0 g/L of influent only performed marginally better than the conventional activated sludge process. Chemical oxygen demand and toxicity, evaluated with the Microtox® assay, were among the parameters monitored. For the operating conditions tested the solids retention time had no impact on performance. The main improvement was increased in adsorbable organic halides (AOX) removal, the magnitude of the improvement was dependent on the wastewater batch and the carbon dose. However conventional activated sludge treatment will meet Ontario's year 2000 AOX regulations. An empirical model from the literature described the data fairly well.