Study on the treatment of the sulfite pulp CEH bleaching effluents with the coagulation–anaerobic acidification–aeration package reactor

Abstract The coagulation–anaerobic acidification–aeration package reactor was designed for the treatment of pulp CEH bleaching effluents, the efficiencies in CODcr, BOD 5 , AOX and toxicity removal achieved were 88.1%, 81.0%, 98.4% and 92.0%, respectively, with 15 h HRT. The toxicity and AOX were removed mainly through coagulation and anaerobic process, while the COD and BOD 5 were removed mainly through coagulation and aerobic process. The pretreatment of coagulation precipitation decreased the following organic load, which decreased the following treatment retention time and increased the stability of the system. The results of GC-MS showed: pollutants of wastewater were mainly chlorinated organics, most of AOX and the toxicity were removed by reductive dechlorination and acidified hydrolysis in anaerobic unit, the high COD removal in aerobic unit showed further degradation of pollutants. Chlorine atoms in the ortho position were preferentially dechlorination, that in para position were difficult to remove from chlorinated phenols during biological treatment.