Waste Water Treatment-Bed of Coal Fly Ash for Dyes and Pigments Industry

Abstract

The highly porous power plant waste ashes have been utilized to treat toxic effluent of a dyes manufacturing plant. An attempt has been made for the first time in Pakistan, to generate an effective and economically sound treatment facility for the toxic effluent of a dyes manufacturing plant. This is an indigenous bed which could replace expensive treatment facilities, such as reverse osmosis (RO), granulated activated carbon (GAC) bed, etc. The treatment efficiency was improved by coupling coagulants with fly ash adsorbent bed. The ash was collected from coal fired boilers of power plant at Lakhra Power Generation Company, Jamshoro, Pakistan. The use of this ash resolved the disposal and environmental issues by treating wastewater of chemical, dyes and pigment industry. The treatment bed comprised of briquettes of coal fly ash coupled with commercial coagulant ferrous sulfate-lime reduced COD, color, turbidity and TSS of effluent remarkably. An adsorption capacity and chemical behavior of fly ash bed was also studied. In coagulation treatment, coagulant FeSO4-lime influenced reduction of COD, color, turbidity and TSS by 32%, 48%, 50% and 51%, respectively. The CFAB coupled with coagulant, resulted an excessive removal of color, TSS, COD, and turbidity by 88%, 92%, 67% and89%, respectively.