Treatment of Real Textile Wastewater Using Electron Beam Irradiation

Textile wastewater is known to have a large number of hazardous pollutants, intense color and high chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration. The electron beam method is considered useful in treatment textile wastewater through chemical oxidation process. In this study, three real textile wastewaters (Sample 1: Reactive Black 5, Reactive Red 10, and Reactive Orange 13; Sample 2: Reactive Red 10 and Yellow GR; Sample 3: Reactive Black 5 and Turquoise Blue HF–G) from textile dyeing company in Ho Chi Minh city were treated by electron beam method. The effect of absorbed doses and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) at different concentrations on the change of pH, removal capacity, COD and five day’s biological oxygen demand (BOD₅) were investigated. The results indicated that color, COD, BOD₅ and pH decreased with increasing absorbed dose. A sufficient amount of H₂O₂ in the radiation process could accelerate the color removal process. In the same condition, a color removal efficiency of ~90% was obtained with EB/H₂O₂, in contrast with color loss by using EB alone (~71%). These results highlighted the potential of EB radiation technology for treatment of textile dyeing wastewater.