Pretreatment of wastewater containing a mixture of organic pollutants obtained from a CC2 plant by coagulation

Coagulation is one of the most important physicochemical treatment steps in industrial wastewater to reduce the suspended and colloidal materials responsible for colour and turbidity of the wastewater. The manufacturing plant of N,N′-Dichloro bis (2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) urea (CC2) produces wastewater containing pyridine, acetic acid and diphenyl urea (DPU). The wastewater also contains lot of suspended solids like CC2 and various poly-aromatic compounds. In our present investigation, our basic aim was to find an effective coagulation process for the pretreatment of wastewater discharged from the CC2 plant. Studies were conducted to find out a suitable and effective coagulant for pretreatment of this wastewater. Various coagulating agents such as alum, ferric chloride, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (Na-CMC) were used. Alum was found to be the most effective coagulant. Coagulation of the wastewater resulted in the total suspended solids (TSS) removal in the range of 92–94% and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal in the range of 59 to 65% at a dose of 500 mg L⁻¹ of alum at a pH ≥ 7.0. After coagulation the concentration of pyridine in wastewater was found to be reduced by 10.0% and that of DPU 40–45% with a dosage of 500 mg L⁻¹ alum.