Organic pollution removal from coke plant wastewater using coking coal

Coke plant wastewater (CPW) is an intractable chemical wastewater, and it contains many toxic pollutants. This article presents the results of research on a semi-industrial adsorption method of coking wastewater treatment. As a sorbent, the coking coal (CC) was a dozen times less expensive than active carbon. The treatment was conducted within two scenarios, as follows: (1) adsorption after biological treatment of CPW with CC at 40 g L⁻¹; the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal was 75.66%, and the concentration was reduced from 178.99 to 43.56 mg L⁻¹; (2) given an adsorption by CC of 250 g L⁻¹ prior to the biological treatment of CPW, the eliminations of COD and phenol were 58.08% and 67.12%, respectively. The CC that adsorbed organic pollution and was returned to the coking system might have no effect on both coke oven gas and coke.