Wastewater treatment of emulsion bitumen plants by adsorption process

Although the emulsion bitumen plants produce little waste, they have been known as the green industry. The wastewater of these plants is transparent in appearance and because of having amine compounds, has foaming properties. Due to the use of sulfuric acid during the process, the pH of the produced wastewater is about 2. As a result, the biological treatment of wastewater becomes impossible. Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of the wastewater is about 20000 mg/lit indicating that its pollution load is very high. In the present study the potential of adsorption process for treating wastewater produced from emulsion bitumen plants was investigated. Adsorbents such as, sawdust, activated carbon, human hair, TiO2 and nano-TiO2 were studied. The results showed that the adsorption process can be used successfully in treating this type of wastewater. Sawdust as an adsorbent reduced 96% of pollution load at pH =10.