Decolorization of textile wastewater by ozonation and Fenton's process

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of some operational parameters on the efficiency of ozonation and Fenton's process for decolorization and COD removal. Acid Red 337 and Reactive Orange 16 dye solutions and the effluents of acid and reactive dye-bath effluents were used in the experiments. The influence of ozone dose and pH for color and COD removal from the wastewater were studied. Increasing the ozone dose increased the rate constants, and color and COD removal efficiencies. Ozone consumption ratio per unit color and COD removal at any time was found to be almost the same while the applied ozone dose was different. pH did not significantly affect color and COD removal from the wastewater by ozonation. In spite of having high color removal efficiencies (60–91%), limited COD removal efficiencies between 9–17% at 30 minutes ozonation time were obtained. In the Fenton oxidation experiments, the effects of pH, temperature, dosage of ferrous sulfate and hydrogen peroxide, and the proper ratio of Fe(II)/H₂O₂ were studied. The result indicates that up to 99% color removal and 82% COD removal can be obtained by Fenton's oxidation. While Fenton's oxidation was greatly affected by the pH value, temperature of wastewater did not significantly affect the Fenton process for color removal. Increasing the dose of both hydrogen peroxide and ferrous sulfate enhanced the removal efficiencies of color and COD. Suitable ratios of Fe(II)/H₂O₂ were found to be between 0.5 and 0.83.