Treatment and Reuse of Wastewater from the Textile Wet-Processing Industry : Review of Emerging Technologies

New ecolabels for textile products and tighter restrictions on waste- water discharges are forcing textile wet processors to reuse process water and chemicals. This challenge has prompted intensive research in new advanced treatment technologies, some of which currently making their way to full-scale installations. These comprise polishing treatments such as -ltration, chemical oxidation and specialized Nocculation techniques and pre-treatment steps includ- ing anaerobic digestion, -xed--lm bioreactors, FentonIs reagent oxidation, elec- trolysis, or foam Notation. Though several of these new technologies are promising in terms of cost and performance, they all su†er limitations which require further research and/or need broader validation. A segment of the research deals with the separate handling of speci-c sub-streams such as dyebath effluents to which membrane -ltration is sometimes applied. The main limitation of this approach is the treatment of the concentrate stream. The spectrum of available technologies may, in the future, be further broadened to include oxidation, specialized bio-sorptive processes, solvent extrac- fungi/H 2 O 2 -driven tion, or photocatalysis. 1998 SCI ( J. Chem. T echnol. Biotechnol. 72, 289E302 (1998)