Nabil Project Final

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SUBMITTED BY -
EXAMINATION ROLL NO : 2347
SESSION : 2007-2008
DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED CHEMISTRY & CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA
DHAKA-1000
BANGLADESH

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First of all I express my unfathomable admiration to almighty Allah, who is so kind and keep me
healthy and give me capability to complete my project work in due time.
I am profoundly beholden to my cherished teacher, Dr. ANM Hamidul Kabir, Assistant Professor,
Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Ajoy Kumar Das, Professor,
Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, University of Dhaka, for their kind
instruction to keep forward my project work, and for providing all the amenities throughout the
research work and also about writing this paper. Their continuous assistance, positive criticism,
back-up and motivation have made this thesis successful.
I am also thankful to Professor Dr. Dilruba Huq, Course Coordinator,4th year honours
Examination- 2008, Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, University of
Dhaka, for her pedagogic guidance and dynamic collaboration.
I also like to articulate my gratitude to my respected teacher Dr. Md.Nurul Amin,my project
guide,for his kind assistance & guidance without which the entire project will be totally impossible.
I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to my entire respectable teachers of the Department of
Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, University of Dhaka, for their assistance and co-
operation.
I would also like to thank S.M.Estiar Haque, M.S. Session : 2003-2004, Department of Applied
Chemistry & Chemical Engineering from whom I have got valuable help to complete the project.
And finally my earnest thanks to all my friends, family members and well-wishers for their
encouragement and repercussion.

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4

Textile industry is providing one of the most basic needs of people, ³Cloth´. It has a unique
position in the world of industry as self reliant industry from the production of raw material to the
delivery of finished products with substantial value addition at each stage of processing. It makes a
major contribution to the country in economy.
Bangladesh is one of the developing countries in the world,which is trying to become a middle-
income country. The developing countries with the poverty problem, have also many other
problems. One of the most important topics currently being discussed throughout the world, in
terms of human health risks as well as socio-economic paradigms, is environmental
pollution,especially water pollution.
Industrial pollution is an area of growing environmental concern in Bangladesh. The country still
has a relatively small industrial base (including manufacturing, construction, mining and utilities)
contributing about 18% of GDP (2008-09). The manufacturing sub-sector accounts for about half
of this contribution and it grew at a rate of 5.1% between 1972 and 2010. With the growth of the
ready-made garments sector, the textile sector is also growing at a high rate in recent years.
There are increasing efforts to develop the industrial sector of the country by both stimulating the
local industries and attracting foreign investors. As a result, the growth rate of the industrial sector is
expected to rise. The growth rate of the manufacturing sector has been projected to be 5.6 % for the
year 2010 (ADB, March 2010). As Bangladesh attempts to attain economy development by replacing
its agricultural base with industries and rural enterprises with urban centers, pollution and other
environmental impacts of industries are becoming critical in development planning. (Bhattacharya et
al., 1995).
Bangladesh has been late in the process of industrialization. The industrial sector plays a pivot
role for accelerated economic growth as well as rapid employment generation. Before
liberation(1971), some simple process industries like jute, textiles, sugar mills, pulp and paper
mills, a small fertilizer plant, a cement factory, a mini steel mill, a few pharmaceutical units,
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bottling and packaging and several minor dockyards comprised the industrial base of the
country. Thus,the industrialization in Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan) began in the 1950s at a
very slow pace with the primary focus on agro-based industries such as jute, cotton and sugar. After
independence in 1971, there was renewed interest in industrial development within the limited and
fragile post-war infrastructure.
At that time, within the overall objective of attaining a self-reliant economy, the First Five Year
Plan (1973-1978) of the country adopted an import substitution strategy for industrialization with
emphasis on domestic production of basic needs and investment goods. During the last thirty eight
years, the nation¶s industrialization efforts were channeled mainly through the public sector. A
major portion of public investments was devoted to new capacity creation in chemical fertilizers
and in the establishment of several basic engineering industries, while both the public and private
sectors invested in textiles and clothing. Some investments were also made in balancing,
modernization and expansion of some of the existing jute and textile mills.On the whole, the most
significant industrial growth has been recorded after 1982 particularly the development of the
garments, textile and dyeing sectors. (Bhattacharya et al., 1995).
Based primarily on the agricultural raw materials, with very limited land and huge unemployed
labour force, Bangladesh now seeks a solution in industrialization because there are no other
alternatives to her into a middle income country. The country¶s aspiration for industrialization also
matches that of other developing countries seeking the same goal, which are made to believe that
industry is central to the economies of modern societies. But in many other developed countries, the
indiscriminate discharge of industrial wastes into ecosystems has been restricted through strict
regulations. Unfortunately, we are lagging behind. With the growth of industry at about 10% of
GDP, enhanced industrial pollution is likely to create an alarming situation.
Bangladesh has now about 30,000 industrial units of which about 24,000 are small and cottage and
remaining 6,000 large and medium. Production for all industrial groups has increased by 46% since
1981, with some groups such as textile products, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals
increasing by 20 to 4000 percent over last ten years (DoE, 1992).Among all of them, the ready-
made garment sector has become one of the largest manufacturing sectors in Bangladesh with
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approximately 4490 apparel manufacturing units registered under the Bangladesh Garment
Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA) in 2008.
Gazipur has seen a phenomenal rise in the industrial sector during the last decade. In Gazipur,
textile mills particularly, represent an important economic sector. The bulk of the textile products of
these industries are exported. Several Textile Mills and Apparals are situated in Gazipur district. It
is located about 30 km North of Dhaka. They produce all types of textile products which are
exported to the foreign country.
The technological problems resulting from the discharge of effluents from Textile Mills and
Apparals into drainage have been among the most important water and soil pollution problem in this
area. High concentrations of arsenic and heavy metals such as Cu, Cd, Zn, Pb, Cr. Mn and Fe have
been reported in this area. Soils are the most important sink of trace elements. This problem is
aggravated because the affected soil and water from the drainage is used directly for agriculture
purposes. In this situation, it is necessary to evaluate different parameters [ pH, BOD(Biochemical
oxygen demand),COD(Chemical oxygen demand),TSS(Total suspended solids),TDS(Total
dissolved solids),Oil & grease,Colour,Temperature etc.] and the presence of mineral elements(
which are toxic to soil and plant as well as to human health )and compare with their threshhold limits
in such soils which are toxic to soil and plant as well as to human health. Consequently, textile
industry effluents are posing a growing problem. This project will allow us to determine the level of
pollution in textile industries which,in fact, will be helpful to create awareness among the public as
well as the policy makers about the importance of installing µEffluent Treatment Plant¶ in various
polluting industries.
In this way the characteristics of effluent very greatly. So the random discharge of industrial wastes
and effluents pollute the ecosystem in Bangladesh and ultimately, the water-soil-plant-food system
including fisheries of the riverine delta of Bangladesh. (Faisal et al., 2000; Gain, P. (Ed.). 1998; De,
A. K. 1993; Haq, S.A. 1989; Chowdhury N., 1989; Nakos,G. 1983; Saxena, M.M.1990; Stemberg
et al., 1981; Tan kim, H.,1994).
With this view in mind, the present project was done to:
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K Define industrial wastewater treatment process

K Identify the sources of wastewater
K Give an idea about characteristics of wastewater
K Describe methods and equipment used in wastewater treatment
K Inform about environmental effects of wastewater on receiving streams
K Give information about guideline and discharge standards of the industry permit systems
K Give conception about current industrial environmental status
K Identify hazardous substances produced in textile industry and give information about their
controlling process
K Give direction to new treatment options of wastewater
K Make overall comments about wastewater treatment process

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The present project is aimed to highlight the importance of industrial wastewater treatment
process,particularly for textile industries . The textile effluent contains highly toxic dyes, bleaching
agents, salts, acids,alkalis,fats,oils,greases. Heavy metals like As, Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn, Fe and Mn are
also found in the textile effluents, which are usually not properly treated before its discharge. So
they may have harmful effects on the surrounding soil properties, because the element of those soils
may be transferred from soil to plants. By examining the chemical properties of the soil and also
toxicity present in it due to industrial waste using AAS (Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy) indicate
that the sludge and surrounded soils are not suitable for agricultural or other purposes.So waste
water treatment or effluent treatment is must to prevent pollution of receiving streams of water and
soil.

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Industrial activities generate a large number and variety of waste products which are generally
discharged into water streams.The ultimate disposal of wastewater can only be onto the land or into
the water. But whenever the water courses are used for the ultimate disposal,the waste water is
given a treatment to prevent any injury to the aquatic life in the receiving water.This treatment can
be done by various mechanisms and processes. So, industrial wastewater treatment can be defined
as ³ The mechanisms and processes used to treat waters that have been contaminated in some way
by anthropogenic industrial or commercial activities prior to its release into the environment or its
re-use.´
Most industries produce some wet waste although recent trends in the developed world have been
to minimise such production or recycle such waste within the production process. However, many
industries remain dependent on processes that produce wastewaters.So waste water treatment plant
is designed to remove inorganic substances,organic substances,acids or alkalies,toxic
substances,colour producing substances,oil and other floating substances produced during the
industrial activities and processes.

But before proceeding with the design of the treatment plant itself,it is essential to determine :
1) Sources of the wastewater,
2) The characteristics of the raw wastewater,
3) The required characteristics of the treatment plant effluent,which will not pollute the
receiving water course beyond certain acceptable limits.

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In Textile processing, the characteristics of the waste produced in some major operation involved
are as follows:
K Sizing: The wastewater is generally colored and contains starch, polyvinyl alcohol and
softeners. It has high BOD and high content of dissolved suspended solids.
K Desizing, scouring and mercerizing: The waste contains starch, acids, alkali silicates and
enzymes.
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K Bleaching: The effluent contains chlorine, hypochlorite and peroxide.

K Dyeing and finishing: The waste contains heavy metals and arsenic as their salts is used in
these sections.
To design a wastewater treatment plant,determination of the source units of the wastewater is
necessary. Industry of a specific category has its own source of wastewater.These sources of
wastewater are different units of the industry. In case of a textile mill, wastewater generating units
are :
(i) Knit dyeing units, (ii) Woven dyeing units, (iii) Denim plants, (iv) Printing units, and
(v) Garments washing units.

"7"3" "8
Knit dyeing is the dyeing process where organized knits(cloth manufactured from thread/yarn )are
dyed by using weave.
This dyeing process is classified by following 4 steps according to the usage of knit :
K YarnĺWeavingĺFormingĺTurningĺRefining,
BleachingĺDyeingĺLater treatmentĺSofteningĺDehydration,
DryingĺPre-shrinkingĺInspection packaging.
K YarnĺWeavingĺFormingĺTurningĺRefining,
BleachingĺDyeingĺLater treatmentĺDehydration & DryingĺSofteningĺTenderingĺ
Inspection packaging.
K KnitĺWeavingĺFormingĺTurningĺMercerizingĺRefining,
K BleachingĺDyeingĺLater treatmentĺSoftening ĺDehydration & DryingĺPre-
shrinkingĺInspection packaging.
K YarnĺWeavingĺFormingĺTurningĺ MercerizingĺRefining ,
BleachingĺDyeingĺLater treatmentĺSoftening ĺTenderingĺInspection & Packaging.
Some machineries used for Knit dyeing units are stated below :
7Knit Fabric Atmospheric Dyeing machine,

%7 ASMA631 High Temperature High Pressure Dyeing Machine,
!7Fabric Rolling Machine9
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7ASME-C High Temperature Fabric Dyeing Machine,

7 SME-500D high temperature and high pressure dyeing machine ,
(7 High Temperature and High Speed Dyeing Machine,
7 High-Temperature and High-Pressure Fabric Dyeing Machine ,
/7 H. T. H. P "O" Type Soft Flow fabric dyeing machine,
"7 Krsna Fabric Dyeing Machine Textile Processing Machines.,
:7WBD High Temperature Double Overflow Dyeing Machine,
;7ASME-B HT HP Jet Overflow Dyeing Machine,
)7 Dual Flow High Temperature Rapid Dyeing Machine,
+7 Soft Overflow Dyeing Machines,
7 High temperature high speed Fabric Dyeing machine long tube .

""7 23" "

A woven is a cloth formed by weaving. It only stretches in the bias directions (between the warp
and weft directions), unless the threads are elastic. Woven cloth usually frays at the edges, unless
measures are taken to counter this, such as the use of pinking shears or hemming.
Structure of the woven fabric is formed by vertical and horizontal interlaced yarn.In Woven dyeing
units ,dyes used to dye woven cloth are the source of wastewater.
Some machineries used for Woven dyeing units are given below :
7ASME-C High Temperature Fabric Dyeing Machine,
%7High Temperature and High Speed Dyeing Machine,
!7WBD High Temperature Double Overflow Dyeing Machine,
7ASME-B HT HP Jet Overflow Dyeing Machine,
7Soft Overflow Dyeing Machines,
(7High temperature high speed Fabric Dyeing machine long tube .
"""7 "+,)
Denim is a rugged cotton twill textile, in which the weft passes under two (° double") or more
warp fibers, producing the familiar diagonal ribbing identifiable on the reverse of the fabric. It is a
coarse, twilled, sturdy cotton cloth used as for jeans, overalls, and uniforms.
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Some machineries used to manufacture denim are given below :

7 Industrial Sewing Machine BL-6000,
%7 Selling 3-Needle Feed-Off-The-Arm 2-Chainstitch Machine,
!73D Effects Whisker (wrinkle Effect) Machines ,
7Ultrasonic Fixing Machine,
7 4-Head Computerized Sequin Hot Fix Machine,
(7 Jean Washing Dying Machines,
7 Sell Weaving Loom,
/7 Laser Cutting Machine,
"7 Multimedia Multifunction Embossing Debossing Machine,
:7Machine Embroidery etc.

In the denim manufacturing plants,the source of wastewater is different types of
dyes,salts,alkalies,acids used to manufacture denim.
"27"" "
Printing is similar to dyeing, except that print colour is applied to specific areas of the cloth. Dyes
and auxiliaries are similar to those used in fabric dyeing; however, the color application techniques
are quite different. Textiles are usually wet-printed by roller, rotary screen or flatbed screen printing
methods.
27+*/" "
Modern Washing units are equipped with Heavy duty washing plant, Hydro extractor, Stain
removing machines to ensure quality. If garment dyeing is done to the product and "white" is in
line, garment washing is an economical way to "shrink" the white product so that the sizing is
consistent with the product that is garment dyed. If artwork is applied to white garments, using
garment washing is used to preshrink the product that makes benefit in two ways:
First, the washing process removes most contaminants, making the application of artwork (screen
print, batik, garment paints, etc.) easier. Second, there is less risk that artwork will be negatively
13
affected by shrinkage that would take place during home laundering. Many customers want product
that is "pre-shrunk." Garment washing enables to provide pre-shrunk product.Many processesare
used for washing.The most important processes are : /""9 /"9 */", !"
*/"9 ""9("etc.
In these five units,different types of dyestuffs and other auxiliaries are used which are the sources of
wastewater.

7 3 ((
In the textile mill units, dyestuffs are generally used in dyeing and finishing sections. They are of
many structural varieties, such as, acidic, basic, azo, diazo, anthroquinone based and metal complex
dyes.
Textile dyestuffs can be grouped into 14 categories or classes:
(1) acid dyes, (2) direct (substantive) dyes, (3)azoic dyes, (4)disperse dyes,
(5)sulfur dyes, (6) fiber reactive dyes, (7)basic dyes, (8)oxidation dyes,
(9) mordant(chrome) dyes, (10) developed dyes, (11) vat dyes, (12) pigments,
(13) optical/fluorescent brighteners, (14) solvent dye.
Application and characteristics of some important types of dyestuffs is described below :

K Vat: the dye is put on the goods in their reduced state and is then oxidized. These dyes have
excellent light and wash fastness;
K Developed: the dye is applied to the cloth and diazotized, and the colour is developed with a
secondary chemical called the developer. The dyes have good wash fastness;
K Sulfur: the dye is put on the cloth in a reduced state and is then oxidized, producing good fastness
to light and washing;
K Direct: applied directly to the cloth. These are usually low-cost dyes, easy to apply but not very
fast;
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K Fiber reactive dyes : a reactive dye is a dye which reacts chemically with the cellulose molecules
(i.e. the cotton itself). These are quite widely used.
Dyes of different chemical constitution are also used in textile industry. Application and
characteristics of some important dyestuffs are described below :
K Naphthol: the naphthol is applied to the fabric and passed through the developer for coupling. This
produces bright colors and good fastness to light, wash, and bleach;
K Aniline Black: the aniline is oxidized on the goods by air or steam aging, producing excellent
fastness to light;
Different dyes and chemicals are required to treat different types of fibres. While different stage of
operation generates different types of effluents, different types of dyes generate different level of
toxicity.

7 <")""
Auxiliary substances used with dyes in the textile mill units are :
1) Na2S, 2) Na2SO4, 3) NaOH, 4) NaHOCl(Sodium hypochlorite), 5) Na2SO3, 6) ) NH4SO4,
7) Surfactant (LAS,BIAS,CIAS) , 8) H202 , 9) CH3COOH, 10)Paraffin, 11) Cellulose, 12) Starch,
13) P.V.A, 14) C.M.C, 15) Oil, 16) Fats, 17) Soap etc.

'/!""!(**
Characterization of the raw wastewater is essential in the planning for effective and economical
methods of water pollution control.Due to the varying nature of the industrial wastes,many of the
recent installations have designed their treatment units with due consideration to the raw waste
characteristics,and the effluent characteristics,as established by the DOE(Department of
Environment),Bangladesh .
Almost all industries discharge water containing wastes from some stages of their manufacturing
process,but industrial wastes are not same in every case.They are very difficult to generalize.The
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wastes include the raw materials,process chemicals,final products,process intermediates,process by-

products,and impurities in raw materials and process chemicals.
In general, according to some common characteristics of the effluents from industries, wastes can be
classified as follows :
7 Wastes containing organic substances that deplete the oxygen content of the receiving streams
and impose a great load on the biological units of the sewage treatment plant.
%7 Wastes containing inorganic substances like carbonates,chlorides,nitrogen etc. that render the
water body unfit for further use and sometimes encourage the growth of some undesirable micro-
plants in the body of the water
!7Wastes containing acids or alkalis which make the receiving stream unsuitable for the growth of
fish and other aquatic life there,and cause serious difficulties in the operation of sewage treatment
plants.
7 Wastes containing toxic substances like cyanides,sulphides,acetylyne,alcohol,petrol etc. which
cause damage to the flora and fauna of the receiving streams,affect the municipal treatment
processes and sometimes endanger the safety of the workmen.
7Wastes containing colour producing substances like dyes,which though not toxic,are aesthetically
objectionable when present in the water supplies.
(7 Wastes containing oil and other floating substances,which not only render the streams
unsightly,but interfere with the self-purification of the same,and the operations of the sewage
treatment plants.
Wastes can also contain suspended matters,oxygen demanding organic matter, heavy metals
(As,Hg,Pb etc),pathogenic organisms and non bio-degradable organics.
On the basis of processes & operations ,the industrial waste can broadly be classified as :
(a) Wastewater for process and wash,
(b) Waste for cooling,
(c) Sanitary waste.
The amount of pollution created by wastes is characterized in terms of parameters such as :

i) pH,
ii) BOD(Biochemical oxygen demand),
iii) COD(Chemical oxygen demand),
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iv) TSS(Total suspended solids),

v) TDS(Total dissolved solids),
vi) Oil & grease,
vii) Colour,
viii) Temperature etc.

i) ,8
, is a measurement of the acidity or basicity of a solution. It approximates but is not equal to
,=>, the negative logarithm (base 10) of the molar concentration of dissolved hydrogen ions (H+);
a low pH indicates a high concentration of hydrogen ions , while a high pH indicates a low
concentration. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at 25 °C (77 °F). Solutions
with a pH less than 7 (at 25 °C (77 °F)) are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7
(at 25 °C (77 °F)) are said to be basic or alkaline.
pH can be measured by pH meter.
ii) ?"!/+"!)<3+7 :

"!/+"!)<3+ or is a measurement of the uptake rate of dissolved oxygen by
the biological organisms in a body of water. It is not a precise quantitative test, although it is widely
used as an indication of the quality of water.
/ .
There are two recognized methods for the measurement of BOD :
r rr

To ensure that all other conditions are equal, a very small amount of micro-organism seed is added
to each sample being tested. This seed is typically generated by diluting activated sludge with de-
ionized water. The BOD test is carried out by diluting the sample with oxygen saturated de-ionized
water, inoculating it with a fixed aliquot of seed, measuring the dissolved oxygen (DO) and then
sealing the sample to prevent further oxygen dissolving in. The sample is kept at 20 °C in the dark
to prevent photosynthesis (and thereby the addition of oxygen) for five days, and the dissolved
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oxygen is measured again. The difference between the final DO and initial DO is the BOD. The
apparent BOD for the control is subtracted from the control result to provide the corrected value.
The loss of dissolved oxygen in the sample, once corrections have been made for the degree of
dilution, is called the BOD5. For measurement of !%! (cBOD), a nitrification
inhibitor is added after the dilution water has been added to the sample. The inhibitor hinders the
oxidation of nitrogen.
BOD can be calculated by:
K Undiluted : Initial DO - Final DO = BOD

K Diluted : ((Initial DO - Final DO)- BOD of Seed) * Dilution Factor
rr r

This method is limited to the measurement of the oxygen consumption due only to carbonaceous
oxidation. Ammonia oxidation is inhibited.
The sample is kept in a sealed container fitted with a pressure sensor. A substance that absorbs
carbon dioxide (typically lithium hydroxide) is added in the container above the sample level. The
sample is stored in conditions identical to the dilution method. Oxygen is consumed and, as
ammonia oxidation is inhibited, carbon dioxide is released. The total amount of gas, and thus the
pressure, decreases because carbon dioxide is absorbed. From the drop of pressure, the sensor
electronics computes and displays the consumed quantity of oxygen.
The main advantages of this method compared to the dilution method are:
K simplicity: no dilution of sample required, no seeding, no blank sample

K direct reading of BOD value
K continuous display of BOD value at the current incubation time.
Furthermore, as the BOD measurement can be monitored continuously, a graph of its evolution can
be plotted. Interpolation of several graphs on a similar water may build an experience of its usual
evolution, and allow an estimation of the five days BOD after as early as the first two days of
incubation.
iii) ?/+"!)<3 +7

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The !/+"!)<3 + ( ) test is commonly used to indirectly measure the amount of
organic compounds in water. Most applications of COD determine the amount of organic pollutants
found in surface water (e.g. lakes and rivers), making COD a useful measurement of water quality.
It is expressed in milligrams per liter (mg/L), which indicates the mass of oxygen consumed per
liter of solution. Older references may express the units as parts per million (ppm).
22"*
The basis for the COD test is that nearly all organic compounds can be fully oxidized to carbon
dioxide with a strong oxidizing agent under acidic conditions. The amount of oxygen required to
oxidize an organic compound to carbon dioxide, ammonia, and water is given by:
This expression does not include the oxygen demand caused by the oxidation of ammonia into
nitrate. The process of ammonia being converted into nitrate is referred to as v°°v The
following is the correct equation for the oxidation of ammonia into nitrate.
The second equation should be applied after the first one to include oxidation due to nitrification if
the oxygen demand from nitrification must be known. Dichromate does not oxidize ammonia into
nitrate, so this nitrification can be safely ignored in the standard chemical oxygen demand test.
The International Organization for Standardization describes a standard method for measuring
chemical oxygen demand in ISO 6060 .

"3
19
For many years, the strong oxidizing agent potassium permanganate (KMnO4) was used for
measuring chemical oxygen demand. Measurements were called
v v from
permanganate, rather than the
v v of organic substances. Potassium permanaganate's
effectiveness at oxidizing organic compounds varied widely, and in many cases biochemical
oxygen demand (BOD) measurements were often much greater than results from COD
measurements. This indicated that potassium permanganate was not able to effectively oxidize all
organic compounds in water, rendering it a relatively poor oxidizing agent for determining COD.
Since then, other oxidizing agents such as ceric sulfate, potassium iodate, and potassium dichromate
have been used to determine COD. Of these, potassium dichromate (K2Cr2O7) has been shown to be
the most effective: it is relatively cheap, easy to purify, and is able to nearly completely oxidize
almost all organic compounds.
In these methods, a fixed volume with a known excess amount of the oxidant is added to a sample
of the solution being analyzed. After a refluxing digestion step, the initial concentration of organic
substances in the sample is calculated from a titrimetric or spectrophotometric determination of the
oxidant still remaining in the sample.
"," +"!/+
Potassium dichromate is a strong oxidizing agent under acidic conditions. (Acidity is usually
achieved by the addition of sulfuric acid.) The reaction of potassium dichromate with organic
compounds is given by:
where v

. Most commonly, a 0.25 N solution of potassium dichromate is
used for COD determination, although for samples with COD below 50 mg/L, a lower
concentration of potassium dichromate is preferred.
In the process of oxidizing the organic substances found in the water sample, potassium dichromate
is reduced (since in all redox reactions, one reagent is oxidized and the other is reduced), forming
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Cr3+. The amount of Cr3+ is determined after oxidization is complete, and is used as an indirect
measure of the organic contents of the water sample.

Because COD measures the oxygen demand of organic compounds in a sample of water, it is
important that no outside organic material be accidentally added to the sample to be measured. To
control for this, a so-called blank sample is required in the determination of COD (and BOD -
biochemical oxygen demand - for that matter). A blank sample is created by adding all reagents
(e.g. acid and oxidizing agent) to a volume of distilled water. COD is measured for both the water
and blank samples, and the two are compared. The oxygen demand in the blank sample is
subtracted from the COD for the original sample to ensure a true measurement of organic matter.

For all organic matter to be completely oxidized, an excess amount of potassium dichromate (or any
oxidizing agent) must be present. Once oxidation is complete, the amount of excess potassium
dichromate must be measured to ensure that the amount of Cr3+ can be determined with accuracy.
To do so, the excess potassium dichromate is titrated with ferrous ammonium sulfate (FAS) until all
of the excess oxidizing agent has been reduced to Cr3+. Typically, the oxidation-reduction indicator
Ferroin is added during this titration step as well. Once all the excess dichromate has been reduced,
the Ferroin indicator changes from blue-green to reddish-brown. The amount of ferrous ammonium
sulfate added is equivalent to the amount of excess potassium dichromate added to the original
sample. and also we can determine COD by boiling the water sample and we can determine CO2
ratio by the infra-red analyzer
,"( ""!

A solution of 1.485 g 1,10-phenanthroline monohydrate is added to a solution of 695 mg
FeSO4·7H2O in water, and the resulting red solution is diluted to 100 mL.
r
The following formula is used to calculate COD:
21
where is the volume of FAS used in the blank sample, is the volume of FAS in the original
sample, and v is the normality of FAS. If milliliters are used consistently for volume measurements,
the result of the COD calculation is given in mg/L.
The COD can also be estimated from the concentration of oxidizable compound in the sample,
based on its stoichiometric reaction with oxygen to yield CO2 (assume all C goes to CO2), H2O
(assume all H goes to H2O), and NH3 (assume all N goes to NH3), using the following formula:
@?A 7?7?'$7
Where, C = Concentration of oxidizable compound in the sample,
FW = Formula weight of the oxidizable compound in the sample,
RMO = Ratio of the no of moles of oxygen to no of moles of oxidizable compound in their
reaction to CO2, water, and ammonia
For example, if a sample has 500 wppm of phenol:
C6H5OH + 7O2 ĺ 6CO2 + 3H2O

COD = (500/94)(7)(32) = 1191 wppm
iv) ?) ,)"7

) ,)" is a water quality measurement usually abbreviated .
Measurement
TSS of a water sample is determined by pouring a carefully measured volume of water (typically
one litre; but less if the particulate density is high, or as much as two or three litres for very clean
22
water) through a pre-weighed filter of a specified pore size, then weighing the filter again after
drying to remove all water. The gain in weight is a dry weight measure of the particulates present in
the water sample expressed in units derived or calculated from the volume of water filtered
(typically milligrams per litre or mg/L).
It is recognized that if the water contains an appreciable amount of dissolved substances (as
certainly would be the case when measuring TSS in seawater), these will add to the weight of the
filter as it is dried. Therefore it is necessary to "wash" the filter and sample with deionized water
after filtering the sample and before drying the filter. Failure to add this step is a fairly common
mistake made by inexperienced laboratory technicians working with sea water samples, and will
completely invalidate the results as the weight of salts left on the filter during drying can easily
exceed that of the suspended particulate matter.
Although turbidity purports to measure approximately the same water quality property as TSS, the
latter is more useful because it provides an actual weight of the particulate material present in the
sample. In water quality monitoring situations, a series of more labor intensive TSS measurements
will be paired with relatively quick and easy turbidity measurements to develop a site-specific
correlation. Once satisfactorily established, the correlation can be used to estimate TSS from more
frequently made turbidity measurements, saving time and effort. Because turbidity readings are
somewhat dependent on particle size, shape, and color, this approach requires calculating a
correlation equation for each location. Further, situations or conditions that tend to suspend larger
particles through water motion (e.g., increase in a stream current or wave action) can produce
higher values of TSS not necessarily accompanied by a corresponding increase in turbidity for the
reason that particles above a certain size (essentially anything larger than silt) are not measured by a
bench turbidity meter (they settle out before the reading is taken) but contribute substantially to the
TSS value.
Definition problems
Although TSS appears to be a straightforward measure of particulate weight obtained by separating
particles from a water sample using a filter, it suffers as a defined quantity from the fact that
particles occur in nature in essentially a continuum of sizes. At the lower end, TSS relies on a cut-
off established by properties of the filter being used. At the upper end, the cut-off should be the
23
exclusion of all particulates too large to be "suspended" in water. However, this is not a fixed
particle size but is dependent upon the energetics of the situatuion at the time of sampling: moving
water suspends larger particles than does still water. Usually it is the case that the additional
suspended material caused by the movement of the water is of interest.
These problems in no way invalidate the use of TSS; consistency in method and technique can
overcome short-comings in most cases. But comparisons between studies may require a careful
review of the methodologies used to establish that the studies are in fact measuring the same thing.
TSS( in mg/L)=(dirty pad weight in grams-clean pad weight in grams)/mL of sample*1,000,000
v) ?) ")2)"7

) ")2 )" (often abbreviated ) is a measure of the combined content of all
inorganic and organic substances contained in a liquid in molecular, ionized or micro-granular
(colloidal sol) suspended form. Generally the operational definition is that the solids must be small
enough to survive filtration through a sieve the size of two micrometer. Total dissolved solids are
normally discussed only for freshwater systems, as salinity comprises some of the ions constituting
the definition of TDS. The principal application of TDS is in the study of water quality for streams,
rivers and lakes, although TDS is not generally considered a primary pollutant (e.g. it is not deemed
to be associated with health effects) it is used as an indication of aesthetic characteristics of drinking
water and as an aggregate indicator of the presence of a broad array of chemical contaminants.
+(
The two principal methods of measuring total dissolved solids are gravimetry and conductivity.
Gravimetric methods are the most accurate and involve evaporating the liquid solvent to leave a
residue that can subsequently be weighed with a precision analytical balance (normally capable of
.0001 gram accuracy). This method is generally the best, although it is time-consuming and leads to
inaccuracies if a high proportion of the TDS consists of low boiling point organic chemicals, which
will evaporate along with the water. If inorganic salts comprise the great majority of TDS,
gravimetric methods are appropriate.
24
Electrical conductivity of water is directly related to the concentration of dissolved ionized solids in
the water. Ions from the dissolved solids in water create the ability for that water to conduct an
electrical current, which can be measured using a conventional conductivity meter or TDS meter.
When correlated with laboratory TDS measurements, conductivity provides an approximate value
for the TDS concentration, usually to within ten-percent accuracy.
vi) ")
The term oil and grease,as commonly used,includes the fat,oils,waxes and other related constituents
found in waste water.Oils and fats are mainly due to the sizing process and also as oils and grease
come in contact with the fabric during the processing.Apart from this small amount oils are found in
the cellulose fibers.These oils and fats are removed during scouring process and finally pass with the
wastewater.If the wastewater contains oils and fats,they form a layer at the top surface of the
wastewater.As a result,oxygen can¶t come in contact with the water and it becomes difficult to
increase DO level.
Oil and grease discharged into the environment typically has deleterious effects.Oily wastes
discharge may have objectionable odours,cause undesirable appearance,burn on the surface of
receiving water creating potential safety hazards and consume dissolved oxygen necessary to forms
of life in water.Bioassay data indicate that oil is toxic to fish,.In greater quantities,it limits oxygen
transfer,hindering biological activity.
Oil and grease affect respiration of fish by adhering to the gills,it adhere to and destroy algae and
plankton.Feeding and reproduction of water life(plant,insect,and fish) is affected by oils and
fats.Aesthetics is affected by sheens of oils.

vii) )
Colour of wastewater is imparted by dyes.The loss of dyes to effluent can be estimated to be 10% for
deep shades,2% for medium shades and minimal for light shades however the loss of dyes is mainly
depending on the class of dyes.Dyes are present in the effluent at the concentrations of 10 mg/L to
50 mg/L with 1 mg/L visible to the naked eye.Dyes are complex organic compounds which are
refractory in aerobic treatment systems.Some contains metals such as Cr,Cu and Zn.
25
In the aquatic environment,dyes can undergo bio-concentration,ionization,abiotic oxidation, abiotic

and microbial reduction and precipitation.The ionic dyes such as acid,direct,basic and metal complex
dyes will not volatilize,whereas,in principle;solvent,disperse,vat and sulphur dyes have the potential
to be volatile.Sorption should also play a major role as dyeing is a sorption process.Hydrolic
reactions are not important because if the dyes survive the biological treatment process,it is unlikely
to degrade rapidly in the environment.Photochemical reactions may be important,as dyes are good
absorber of solar energy.Aquatic plants will not be able to produce food by the process of
photosynthesis,as a result their life will be endangered.It is expected that anionic dyes would react
with ions like calcium and magnesium to form insoluble salts and thereby reduce the concentration
available for other biological reactions.Redox reactions would also be considered,as in early vat
dyeing processes,the dyes were reduced microbially before chemical replacements were
introduced.Reduction in the environment would most likely occur under anaerobic conditions.Two
methods are widely used for discolouration.One is ± physical sedimentation of dyes by coagulating
and flocculating;here dyes are removed completely.On the other hand,Ozonization is applicable for
discolouration where it breaks the pie bond of chromophoric group of dyes but dyes may remain in
discharge water.
viii) +,
Temperature of water is a very important factor for aquatic life.It controls the rate of metabolic and
reproductive activities,and determines which aquatic species can survive.Different aquatic species
require different quantities of DO to survive in the water.Temperature inversely affects the rate of
transfer of gaseous oxygen into dissolved oxygen.On the other hand, at higher temperature,the
metabolic rate of aquatic plants and animals increases producing an increase in oxygen demand.
International regulations related to water temperature and aquatic life classifies water according to
temperature :
*"Class 1 Cold Water Aquatic Life ",that should never have temperatures exceeding 20 R C,
*"Class 1 Warm Water Aquatic Life ",that should never have temperatures exceeding 30 R C.
These regulations also state that temperature for these classes shall maintain a normal pattern of day
to day and seasonal fluctuations with no abrupt changes and shall have no increases in temperature
of a magnitude,rate,and duration deemed harmful to the resident aquatic life.Generally,a maximum 3
R C increase over a minimum of a 4-hr period,lasting 12 hours maximum,is deemed acceptable.
26
Temperature preferences among aquatic species vary widely,but all species tolerate slow,seasonal
changes better than rapid changes.Respiration of organisms is temperature related ; respiration rates
can increase by 10% or more per 1R C temperature rise.Therfore,increased temperature not only
reduces oxygen availability,but also increases oxygen demand,which can add to physiological stress
of organisms.Increased temperature influence the activity of bacteria and toxic chemicals secreted by
the bacteria in water.
In case of Textile production, a number of wet processes are involved that may use solvents.
Emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) mainly arise from textile finishing, drying
processes, and solvent use. VOC concentrations vary from 10 milligrams of carbon per cubic meter
(mg/m3) for the thermosol process to 350 mg carbon/m3 for the drying and condensation process.
Process wastewater is a major source of pollutants (see Table 1). It is typically alkaline and has high
BOD²from 700 to 2,000 milligrams per liter(mg/L)²and high chemical oxygen demand(COD), at
approximately 2 to 5 times the BOD level. Wastewater also contains solids, oil, and possibly toxic
organics, including phenols from dyeing and finishing and halogenated organics from processes such
as bleaching. Dye wastewaters are frequently highly colored and may contain heavy metals such as
copper and chromium.Wool processing may release bacteria and other pathogens. Pesticides are
sometimes used for the preservation of natural fibers, and these are transferred to wastewaters during
washing and scouring operations. Pesticides are used for mothproofing, brominated flame retardants
are used for synthetic fabrics, and isocyanates are used for lamination .Wastewaters should be
checked for pesticides such asDDT and PCP and for metals such as mercury,arsenic, and copper.
Air emissions include dust, oil mists, acid vapors, odors, and boiler exhausts. Cleaning and
production changes result in sludges from tanks and spent process chemicals, which may contain
toxic organics and metals.
A sample of wastewater characteristics of a textile industry is given on the following page :

27

2) + /,))
! "?7?+'A7?;A7?;A7?;A7

Wool processing (metric ton of wool)a
Average unscoured stockb 544 314 196 Oil 191
Average scoured stock 537 87 43 Cr 1.33
Process-specific Phenol 0.17
Scouring 17 227 153 Cr 1.33
Dyeing 25 27 Phenol 0.17
Washing 362 63
Carbonizing 138 2 44 Oil 191
Bleaching 12.5 1.4 Cr 1.33
Phenol 0.17
Cotton processing (°°v°°v)
Average compoundedc 265 115 70
Process-specific
Yarn sizing 4.2 2.8
Desizing 22 58 30
Kiering 100 53 22
Bleaching 100 8 5
Mercerizing 35 8 2.5
Dyeing 50 60 25
Printing 14 54 12
Other fibers (°°v °)

Rayon processing 42 30 55
Acetate processing 75 45 40
Nylon processing 125 45 30
Acrylic processing 210 125 87
Polyester processing 100 185 95
a. The pH varies widely, from 1.9 to 10.4.

b. The average compounded load factors listed are based on the assumption that only 20% of the
product is mercerized (only nonwoolen components are mercerized) and 10% is bleached.
c. The average compounded load factors listed are based on the assumption that only 35% of the
product is mercerized, 50% of the product is dyed, and 14% of the product is printed.
Source: Economopoulos 1993.
In case of Bangladesh,the characteristics are a little bit different. Effluent(wastewater) characteristics

of Partex Denims Ltd( Chandora,Kaliakoir,Gazipur) surveyed by Aquatech Engineering Services
Ltd is given on the following page :
28
1 )"3 " B)

,+
01 pH ------ 8 - 14
02 BOD mg/L,5days 600 - 2500
03 COD mg/L,day 2500 - 4200
04 TSS mg/L 300 - 500
05 TDS mg/L 4000 - 8500
06 Oil & grease mg/L 30 - 60
07 Colour Co-pt unit 10900 Co-pt
08 Temperature ÛC 60ÛC

29
#/1 ",+ "**+

The method of treatment of an industrial waste depends on various factors such as :
(a) Nature of industrial waste,
(b) BOD and COD of the effluent,
(c) pH value of the effluent,
(d) Suspended solids present,
(e) Total solids present,
(f) Pollutants present,
(g) Toxic chemical substances present etc.
The treatment of industrial wastewater may be accompanied in part or as a whole either by the
biological processes,or by processes very special for the industrial wastewater only.The important
factors,which affect the planning for a industrial wastewater treatment plants are :
1) The discontinuity and season of discharged wastes,
2) High concentration of the waste,
3) Non biodegrability and toxicity of some wastes.
Goals of industrial wastewater treatment should be :

i) Reduction of suspended matters,
ii) Reduction of oxygen demanding organic and inorganic matter,
iii) Reduction of toxic(heavy) metals,
iv) Removal of colour producing substances,
v) Removal of oil and other floating substances.
These operations can be carried out by several methods of treatment.According to the effectiveness
of removing the pollutants,the treatments are classified as follows:
ð Pretreatment,
Primary treatment,
Secondary treatment,
Advanced /Tertiary treatment.

30
Many industrial-wastewater streams should be pretreated prior to discharge to municipal sewerage

systems or even to a central industrial sewerage system. Pretreatment of individual streams should
be considered whenever these streams might have an adverse effect on the total treatment system.
Following methods are used for pretreatment process :
"7 Equalization,
""7 Neutralization,
"""7 Grease and oil removal,
"27Removal of Toxic Substances.
Short description about these processes are given below :

"71 )"6"
When strong wastes from the factories are dumped in batches,it often causes a sudden increase in
the characteristics of the waste such as pH, BOD,temperature etc.This will produce detrimental
loads.Hence it is necessary to equalise the discharge by holding up water in retaining basins and
releasing it slowly in batches.The effluent from an equalization process has been found to be much
consistent in characteristics.The pH, BOD,COD etc are stabilized and suspended heavy solids are
settled.Such stable effluents are also easy to be treated effectively as well as efficiently.
Equalization is also capable of producing even such effluents which don¶t require any further
treatment.
So,when the characteristics of the waste vary in a day and also the discharge rate is not uniform or
continuous,the waste may require Equalization before it is subjected to the treatment.Equalization
consists of holding the waste for some pre-determined time in a continuously mixed basin,which
produces an effluent of fairly uniform characteristics.
To reduce the strength of waste,a no of methods beside equalization can be used such as ±
* Process and raw material changes,
* Equipment modification,
* By-product recovery,
* Segragation of wastes etc.
* Process and raw material changes

31
The volume of industrial waste can be reduced by changing the process of material.For example,the
highly polluted waste because of use of starch as a sizing agent in textile industry is the main source
of pollution.If it is replaced by cellulosic sizing agent,the pollution load can be reduced to a great
extent.
* Equipment modification
The strength of pollutants entering the water bodies can also be reduced by changing the equipment
or by making modifications in the equipment.Large quantities of pollutants have actually been
reduced even affecting a very slight change in the equipment.For example,in poultry farms,if traps
are provided on the discharge lines to prevent feather and pieces of fat entering,water pollution is
reduced.
* By-product recovery
The recovery of useful products from industrial wastes not only reduces pollution but also to saving
in expenditure.For example in pulp and paper mill,the wood chips are cooked in NaOH and
Na2SO4. A black liquid,known as black liqour is produced as a result of release of lignins.
The black liqour is highly alkaline and has high BOD. Its treatment is expensive as well as very
difficult.Hence it is profitable to recover the chemicals from black liqour for reuse,which not only
reduces the pollution load but also the strength of waste liquid which is responsible for pollution of
water bodies.
* Segregation of wastes
The relatively less volume and highly toxic wastes can be segregated from the main stream and can
then be treated separately by solar evaporation,incineration etc.As a result pollution load on
biological treatment units is much reduced.The waste containing highly toxic substances can be
segregated as well as incinerated.

""7 )"6"
Acidic or basic wastewaters must be neutralized prior to discharge. If an industry produces both
acidic and basic wastes, these wastes may be mixed together at the proper rates to obtain neutral pH
levels. Equalization basins can be used as neutralization basins. When separate chemical
neutralization is required, sodium hydroxide is the easiest base material to handle in a liquid form
and can be used at various concentrations for in-line neutralization with a minimum of equipment.
Yet, lime remains the most widely used base for acid neutralization. Limestone is used when
32
reaction rates are slow and considerable time is available for reaction. Sulfuric acid is the primary
acid used to neutralize high-pH wastewaters unless calcium sulfate might be precipitated as a result
of the neutralization reaction. Hydrochloric acid can be used for neutralization of basic wastes if
sulfuric acid is not acceptable. For very weak basic wastewaters carbon dioxide can be adequate for
neutralization.
"""7")+2)
Grease and oils tend to form insoluble layers with water as a result of their hydrophobic
characteristics.These hydrophobic materials can be easily separated from the water phase by gravity
and simple skimming, provided they are not too well mixed with the water prior to separation. If the
oils and greases form emulsions with water as a result of turbulent mixing, the emulsions are
difficult to break. Separation of oil and grease should be carried out near the point of their mixing
with water. In a few instances, air bubbles can be added to the oil and grease mixtures to separate
the hydrophobic materials from the water phase by flotation. Chemicals have also been added to
help break the emulsions. American Petroleum Institute (API) separators have been used
extensively by the petroleum industry to remove oils from wastewaters. The food industries use
grease traps to collect the grease prior to its discharge. Unfortunately,grease traps are designed for
regular cleaning of the trapped grease. Too often they are allowed to fill up and discharge the
excess grease into the sewer or are flushed with hot water and steam to fluidize the grease for easy
discharge to the sewer. A grease trap should be designed for a specific volume of grease to be
collected over specific time periods. Care should be taken to design the trap so that the grease can
easily be removed and properly handled. Neglected or poorly designed grease traps are worse than
no grease traps at all.

"27+2)(<"! %!
Recent federal legislation of U.S.A has made it illegal for industries to discharge toxic materials in
wastewaters. Each industry is responsible for determining if any of its wastewater components are
toxic to the environment and to remove them prior to the wastewater discharge. The EPA has
identified a number of priority pollutants which must be removed and kept under proper control
from their origin to their point of ultimate disposal. Major emphasis has recently been placed on
heavy metals and on complex organics that have been implicated in possible cancer production.
33
Pretreatment is essential to reduce heavy metals below toxic levels and to prevent discharge of any
toxic organics. Fortunately, toxic organics can ultimately be destroyed by various chemical
oxidation systems. Incineration appears to be the most economical method for destroying toxic
organics.
To make incineration economical, the organics must be kept separated from the dilute wastewaters
and treated in their concentrated form. If the heavy metals cannot be reused, they must be
concentrated and placed into insoluble materials which will not leach the heavy metals. Toxic
substances currently pose the greatest challenge to industries since very little attention has been
paid to these materials in the past.
( r

Wastewater treatment is directed toward removal of pollutants with the least effort. Suspended solids are
removed by either physical or chemical separation techniques and handled as concentrated solids.BOD is
lowered moderately.
Following methods are used for pretreatment process :
"7 Screening,
""7 Degritting,
"""7 Sedimentation,
"27 Chemical precipitation.
"7!"
Fine screens such as hydroscreens are used to remove moderate size particles that are not easily
compressed under fluid flow. Fine screens are normally used when the quantities of screened
particles are large enough to justify the additional units. Mechanically cleaned fine screens have
been used for separating large particles. A few industries have used large bar screens to catch large
solids that could clog or damage pumps or equipment following the screens.
""7 ""
34
Industries with sand or hard, inert particles in their wastewaters have found aerated grit chambers
useful for the rapid separation of these inert particles. Aerated grit chambers are relatively small,
with total volume based on 3-min retention at maximum flow. Diffused air is normally used to
create the mixing pattern shown in Fig. 25-44, with the heavy, inert particles removed by
centrifugal action and friction against the tank walls. The air flow rate is adjusted for the specific
particles to be removed. Floatable solids are removed in the aerated grit chamber. It is important to
provide for regular removal of floatable solids from the surface of the grit chamber;otherwise,
nuisance conditions will be created. The settled grit is normally removed with a continuous screw
and buried in a landfill.

$.C##Schematic diagram of an aerated grit chamber.
"""7"+"
Before an industrial waste is subjected to a Chemical or Biological treatment,or both,it may be
required to separate the suspended matter by physical operations like Sedimentation and Floatation.
Sedimentation tanks are to be provided only when the waste contains high percentage of settlable
solids.(Fig 1)
35
On the other hand, Floatation is employed to separate fine particles with very low settling
characteristics.This process consists of creation of fine air bubbles in the waste body by the
introduction of air to the system.The rising air bubbles attach themselves to the suspended particles
and thereby increase the buoyancy of the particles.The particles thus lifted to the liquid surface are
removed by skimming.

___________
___________
___________
D

Fig : Sedimentation Tank

Fig.Schematic diagram of a circular sedimentation tank "Schematic diagram of a rectangular sedimentation tank.

"27/+"!),!",""
Lightweight suspended solids and colloidal solids can be removed by chemical precipitation and
gravity sedimentation. In effect, the chemical precipitate is used to agglomerate the tiny particles
into large particles that settle rapidly in normal sedimentation tanks. Aluminum sulfate, ferric
chloride, ferrous sulfate,lime, and polyelectrolytes have been used as coagulants. The choice of
36
coagulant depends upon the chemical characteristics of the particles being removed, the pH of the
wastewaters, and the cost and availability of the precipitants. While the precipitation reaction results
in removal of the suspended solids, it increases the amount of sludge to be handled. The chemical
sludge must be considered along with the characteristics of the original suspended solids in
evaluating sludge-processing systems.
Normally, chemical precipitation requires a rapid mixing system and a flocculation system ahead of
the sedimentation tank. With a rectangular sedimentation tank, the rapid-mixer and flocculation
units are added ahead of the tank. With a circular sedimentation tank the rapid-mixer and
flocculation units are built into the tank. Schematic diagrams of chemical treatment systems are
shown in Figs. 25-47 and 25-48. Rapid mixers are designed to provide 30-s retention at average
flow with sufficient turbulence to mix the chemicals with the incoming wastewaters. The
flocculation units are designed for slow mixing at 20-min retention. These units are designed to
cause the particles to collide and increase in size without excessive shearing. Care must be taken to
move the flocculated mixture from the flocculation unit to the sedimentation unit without disrupting
the large floc particles.
The parameter used to design rapid mix and flocculation systems is the root mean square velocity
gradient u which is defined by equation
1/2
u _ ) (1)
sec
where: = Power input to the water (ft-lb/sec)
= Mixer or flocculator volume (ft)3
= Absolute viscosity of water (lb-sec/ft2)

37

"chematic diagram of a chemical precipitation system for rectangular sedimentation tanks.

"Schematic diagram of a chemical precipitation system for circular sedimentation tanks.
Optimum mixing usually requires a u value of greater than 1000 inverse seconds. Optimum
flocculation occurs when uis in the range 10±100 inverse seconds.
Chemical precipitation can remove 95 percent of the suspended solids, up to 50 percent of the
soluble organics and the bulk of the heavy metals in a wastewater. Removal of soluble organics is a
function of the coagulant chemical, with iron salts yielding best results and lime the poorest. Metal
removal is primarily a function of pH and the ionic state of the metal. Guidance is available from
solubility product data.
38

Secondary treatment utilizes processes in which microorganisms, primarily bacteria, stabilize waste
components. The mixture of microorganisms is usually referred to as biomass. A portion of the
waste is oxidized, releasing energy, the remainder is utilized as building blocks of protoplasm. The
energy released by biomass metabolism is utilized to produce the new units of protoplasm. Thus,
the incentive for the biomass to stabilize waste is that it provides the energy and basic chemical
components required for reproduction. The process of biological waste conversion by biological
treatment process is illustrated by Eq. (25-15).

As this equation indicates, the waste generally serves as an electron donor, necessitating that an
electron acceptor be supplied. A variety of substances can be utilized as electron acceptors,
including molecular oxygen, carbon dioxide, oxidized forms of nitrogen, sulfur, and organic
substances. The characteristics of the end products of the reaction are determined by the electron
acceptor. Table 25-39 is a list of typical end products as a function of the electron acceptor. In
general, the end products of this reaction are at a much lower energy level than the waste
components, thus resulting in the release of energy referred to above. Although this process is
usually utilized for the stabilization of organic substances, it can also be utilized for oxidation of
inorganics.
For example, biomass-mediated oxidation of iron, nitrogen, and sulfur is known to occur in nature
and in anthropogenic processes.
Equation (25-15) describes the biomass-mediated reaction and indicates that proper environmental
conditions are required for the reaction to take place. These conditions are required by the biomass,
not the electron donor or acceptor. The environmental conditions include pH, temperature,
nutrients, ionic balance, and so on. In general,biomass can function over a wide pH range generally
from 5 to 9.
39
However, some microbes require a much narrower pH range; i.e.effective methane fermentation
requires a pH in the range of 6.5±7.5.It is just as important to maintain a relatively constant pH in
the process as it is to stay within the range given above. Microorganisms can function effectively at
the extremes of their pH range provided they are given the opportunity to acclimate to these
conditions. Continual changes in pH are detrimental, even if the organisms are on the average near
the middle of their effective pH range. A similar situation prevails for temperature. Most organisms

%)$.C'4)!!!, !(")"!)!"
Electron acceptors End product
Molecular oxygen Water, CO2, oxidized nitrogen
Oxidized nitrogen N2, N2O, NO, CO2, H2O
Oxidized sulfur H2S, S, CO2, H2O
CO2, acetic acid, formic acid CH4, CO2, H2
Complex organics H2, simple organics, CO2, H2O
can function well over a broad range of temperature but do not adjust well to frequent fluctuations
of even a few degrees. There are three major temperature ranges in which microorganisms function.
The psychrophilic range (5° C to 20° C), the mesophilic range (20° C to 45° C), and the
thermophilic range (45° C to 70° C). In general the microbes that function in one of these
temperature ranges cannot function efficiently in the other ranges. As it is generally uneconomical
to adjust the temperature of a waste, most processes are operated in the mesophilic range.
If the normal temperature of the waste is above or below the mesophilic range, the process will be
operated in the psychrophilic or thermophilic range as appropriate. However, occasionally the
temperature of the waste is altered to improve performance. For example,some anaerobic treatment
processes are operated under thermophilic conditions, even though the waste must be heated to
achieve this temperature range. This is carried out in order to speed up the degradation of complex
organics and/or to achieve kill of mesophilic pathogens. It should be noted that any time the
biological operation of a process moves away from its optimum or most effective range, be it pH,
temperature, nutrients, or what have you, the rate of biological processing is reduced.
All microorganisms require varying amounts of a large number of nutrients. These are required
because they are necessary components of bacterial protoplasm. The nutrients can be divided into
three groups: macro, minor, and micro. The macronutrients are those that comprise most of the
biomass. These are given by the commonly accepted formula for biomass (C60H87O23N12P). The
40
carbon, hydrogen,and oxygen are normally supplied by the waste and water, but the nitrogen and
phosphorous must often be added to industrial wastes to ensure that a sufficient amount is present.
A good rule is that the mass of nitrogen should be at least 5 percent of the BOD, and the mass of
phosphorous should be at least 20 percent of the mass of nitrogen. One of the major operational
expenses is the purchase of nitrogen and phosphorous for addition to biologically based treatment
processes.
The quantities of nitrogen and phosphorous referred to above as required are actually in excess of
the minimum amounts needed. The actual amount required depends upon the quantity of excess
biomass wasted from the system and the amount of N and P available in the waste. This will be
expanded upon later in this section. The minor nutrients include the typical inorganic components
of water. These are given in Table 25-40. The range of concentrations required in the wastewater
for the minor nutrients is 1±100 mg/L. The micronutrients include the substances that we normally
refer to as trace metals and vitamins. It is interesting to note that the trace metals include virtually
all of the toxic heavy metals. This reinforces the statement made above that toxicity is a function of
concentration and not an absolute parameter. Whether or not the substances referred to as vitamins
will be required depends upon the type of microorganisms required to stabilize the waste materials.
Many microorganisms have the ability to make their own vitamins from the waste components;
thus, a supplement is not needed. However, occasionally the addition of an external source of
vitamins is essential to the success of a biologically based waste-treatment system. In general, the
trace nutrients must be present in a waste at a level of a few micrograms per liter.
One aspect of the basic equation describing biological treatment of waste that has not been referred
to previously is that biomass appears on both sides of the equation. As was indicated above, the
only reason that microorganisms function in waste-treatment systems is because it enables them to
reproduce. Thus, the quantity of biomass in a wastetreatment system is higher after the treatment
process than before it.

%)8""! "1 "(")"!))3"!
Minor 1±100 mg/L
Sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, chloride, sulfate
Micro 1±100 ȝg/L
Copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese, boron, vanadium, zinc, lead, molybdenum,
various organic vitamins, various amino acids
41
This is favorable in that there is a continual production of the organisms required to stabilize the
waste. Thus, one of the major reactants is, in effect, available free of charge. However, there is an
unfavorable side in that unless some organisms are wasted from the system, an excess level will
build up, and the process could choke on organisms.The wasted organisms are referred to as sludge.
A major cost component of all biologically based processes is the need to provide for the ultimate
disposal of this sludge.
Biologically based treatment processes probably account for the majority of the treatment systems
used for industrial waste management because of their low cost and because most substances are
amenable to biological breakdown. However, some substances are difficult to degrade biologically.
Unfortunately, it is not possible at present to predict a priori the biodegradability of a specific
organic compound; rather, we must depend upon experience and testing. The collective experience
of the field has been put into compendia by EPA in a variety of documents. However, these data are
primarily qualitative.
There have been some attempts to develop a system of prediction of biodegradability based on a
number of compound parameters such as solubility, presence or absence of certain functional
groups, compound polarity, and so on. Unfortunately, none of these systems has advanced to the
point where reliable quantitative predictions are possible.
Another complication is that some organics that are easily biodegradable at low concentration exert
a toxic effect at high concentration.Thus, literature data can be confusing. Phenol is a typical
compound that shows ease of biodegradation when the concentration is below 500 mg/L but poor
biodegradation at higher concentrations.
Another factor affecting both biodegradation and toxicity is whether or not a substance is in
solution. In general, if a substance is not in solution, it is not available to affect the biomass. Thus,
the presence of a waste in substances that can precipitate, complex, or absorb other waste
components can have a significant effect on reports of biodegradability and/or toxicity. A
quantitative estimate of toxicity can be obtained in terms of the change in kinetic parameters (time,
waste concentration ,biomass concentration , influent waste concentration ,treated waste
concentration , reactor hydraulic retention time)of a system.
42

"8Diagram of a suspended growth system. "8Diagram of a fixed-film system.
%)8 2%)? 7(2%)?7+%""()!!!,9

/9!3,
Suspended growth reactor
Electron acceptor Waste strength Condition
Aerobic Low±modest F
Aerobic High U
Anoxic Low±modest F
Anoxic High U
Anaerobic Low±modest U
Anaerobic High F
Fixed film reactor

Electron acceptor Waste strength Condition
Aerobic Low F
Aerobic Modest±high U
Anoxic Low±modest F
Anoxic High U
Anaerobic Low±modest F
Anaerobic High F
!"2) !
This treatment process is the most widely used aerobic suspended growth reactor system. It will
consistently produce a high-quality effluent (BOD5 and SS of 20±30 mg/L). Operational costs are
higher than for other secondary treatment processes primarily because of the need to supply
molecular oxygen using energy-intensive mechanical aerator- or sparger-type equipment.
Removal of soluble organics, colloidal, particulates, and inorganics are achieved in this system
through a combination of biological metabolism,adsorption, and entrapment in the biological floc.
43
Indeed, many pollutants that are not biologically degradable are removed during activated sludge
treatment by adsorption or entrapment by the floc.
For example, most heavy metals form hydroxide or carbonate precipitates under the pH conditions
maintained in activated sludge, and most organics are easily adsorbed to the surface of the
biological floc.A qualitative guide to the latter is provided by the octanol-water partition coefficient
of a compound.
All activated sludge systems include a suspended growth reactor in which the wastewater, recycled
sludge, and molecular oxygen are mixed. The latter must be dissolved in the water; thus the need
for an energy-intensive pure oxygen or air supply system. Usually, air is the source of the molecular
oxygen rather than pure oxygen. Energy for mixing of the reactor contents is supplied by the
aeration equipment.
All systems include a separator and pump station for sludge recycle and sludge wasting. The
separator is usually a sedimentation tank that is designed to function as both a clarifier and a
thickener. Many modifications of the activated sludge process have been developed over
the years and are described below. Most of these involve differences in the way the reactor is
compartmentalized with respect to introduction of waste, recycle, and/or oxygen supply.
V The modifications of activated sludge systems offer considerable choice in
processes. Some of the most popular modifications of the activated sludge process are illustrated in
Fig. 25-54. Conventional activated sludge uses a long narrow reactor with air supplied along the
length of the reactor. The recycle sludge and waste are introduced at the head end of the reactor
producing a zone of high waste to biomass concentration and high oxygen demand. This
modification is used for relatively dilute wastes such as municipal wastewater. Step aeration
systems distribute the waste along the length of the aerator, thus reducing the oxygen demand at the
head end of the reactor and spreading the oxygen demand more uniformly over the whole reactor.
In the complete mix system, the waste and sludge recycle are uniformly distributed over the whole
reactor,resulting in the waste load and oxygen demand being uniform in the entire reactor.
Complete-mixing activated sludge is the most popular system for industrial wastes because of its
ability to absorb shock loads better than other modifications. Contact stabilization is a modification
of activated sludge that is best suited to wastewaters having high suspended solids and low soluble
organics. Contact stabilization employs a short-term mixing tank to adsorb the suspended solids and
44
metabolize the soluble organics, a sedimentation tank for solids separation, and a reaeration tank for
stabilization of the suspended organics.
Extended-aeration systems are actually long-term-aeration, completely mixed activated-sludge
systems. They employ 24- to 48-hr aeration periods and high mixed-liquor suspended solids to
provide complete stabilization of the organics and aerobic digestion of the activated sludge in the
same aeration tank. The oxidation ditch is a popular form of the extended-aeration system
employing mechanical aeration. Pure-oxygen systems are designed to treat strong industrial wastes
in a series of completely mixed units having relatively short contact periods. One of the latest
modifications of activated sludge employs powdered activated carbon to adsorb complex organics
and assist in solids separation. Another modification employs a redwood medium trickling filter
ahead of a short-term aeration tank with mixed liquor recycled over the redwood-medium tower to
provide heavy microbial growth on the redwood as well as in the aeration tank.
As indicated previously, success with the activated sludge process requires that the biomass have
good self-flocculating properties. Significant research effort has been expended to determine the
conditions that favor the development of good settling biomass cultures.
These have indicated that nutritional deficiency, levels of dissolved oxygen between 0 to 0.5 mg/L,
and pH values below 6.0 will favor the predomination of filamentous biomass. Filamentous
organisms settle and compact poorly and thus are difficult to separate from liquid. By avoiding the
above conditions, and with the application of selector technology, the predomination of filaments in
the biomass can be eliminated. A selector is often a short contact (15±30 min) reactor set ahead of
the main activated sludge reactor. All of the recycle sludge and all of the waste are routed to the
selector. In the selector, either a high rate of aeration (aerobic selector) is used to keep the dissolved
oxygen above 2 mg/L, or no aeration occurs (anaerobic selector) so that the dissolved oxygen is
zero. Because filamentous organisms are microaerophilic, they cannot predominate when the
dissolved oxygen level is zero or high. The anaerobic selector not only selects in favor of
nonfilamentous biomass but also fosters luxury uptake of phosphorous and is used in systems where
phosphorous removal is desired.

45

"$.C.#Schematic diagrams of various modifications of the activated-sludge process.
() Conventional activated sludge.() Step aeration. () Contact stabilization. ( ) Complete mixing.
() Pure oxygen. ( ) Activated biofiltration (ABF). () Oxidation ditch.

These systems control the design of aeration tanks. Aeration equipment has two
major functions: mixing and oxygen transfer. Diffused-aeration equipment employs either a
fixedspeed positive-displacement blower or a high-speed turbine blower for readily adjustable air
volumes. Air diffusers can be located along one side of the aeration tank or spread over the entire
bottom of the tank. They can be either fine-bubble or coarse-bubble diffusers. Fine bubble diffusers
are more efficient in oxygen transfer but require more extensive air-cleaning equipment to prevent
them from clogging as a result of dirty air. Mechanical-surface-aeration equipment is more efficient
46
than diffused-aeration equipment but is not as flexible. Economics has dictated the use of large-
power aerators, but tank configuration has tended to favor the use of greater numbers of lower-
power aerators. Oxidation ditches use horizontal rotor-type aerators. Mixing is a critical problem
with mechanical-surface aerators since they are a point-source pump of limited capacity.
Experience has indicated that bearings are a serious problem with mechanical-aeration equipment.
Wave action generated within the aeration tank tends to produce lateral stresses on the bearings and
has resulted in failures and increased maintenance costs. Slow-speed mechanical-surface-aeration
units present fewer problems than the high-speed mechanical-surface aeration units. Deep tanks,
greater than 3.0 m (10 ft), require draft tubes to ensure proper hydraulic flow through the aeration
tank.
Short-circuiting is one of the major problems associated with mechanical aeration equipment.
Combined mechanical- and diffusedaeration systems have enjoyed some popularity for industrial-
waste systems that treat variable organic loads. The mechanical mixers provide the fluid mixing
with the diffused aeration varied for different oxygen-transfer rates.
Diffused-aeration systems transfer from 20 to 40 mg/(L O2.h).Combined mechanical- and diffused-
aeration systems can transfer up to 65 mg/(L O2.h), while mechanical-surface aerators can provide
up to 90 mg/(L O2.h). Pure-oxygen systems can provide the highest oxygen-transfer rate, up to 150
mg/(L O2.h). Aeration equipment must provide sufficient oxygen to meet the peak oxygen demand;
otherwise,the system will fail to provide proper treatment. For this reason, the peak oxygen demand
and the rate of transfer for the desired equipment determine the size of the aeration tank in terms of
retention time. Economics dictates a balance between the size of the aeration tank and the size of
the aeration equipment. As the cost of power increases, economics will favor constructing a larger
aeration tank and smaller aerators. It is equally important to examine the hydraulic flow pattern
around each aerator to ensure maximum efficiency of oxygen transfer. Improper spacing of aeration
equipment can waste energy.
There is no standard aeration-tank shape or size. Aeration tanks can be round, square,or rectangular.
Shallow aeration tanks are more difficult to mix than deeper tanks. Yet aeration-tank depths have
ranged from 0.6 m (2 ft) to 18 m (60 ft). The oxidation-ditch systems tend to be shallow, while
some high-rate diffused-aeration systems have used very deep tanks to provide more efficient
oxygen transfer.
47
Regardless of the aeration equipment employed, oxygen-transfer rates must provide from 0.6 to 1.4
kg of oxygen/kg BOD5 (0.6 to 1.4 lb oxygen/lb BOD5) stabilized in the aeration tank for
carbonaceous oxygen demand. Nitrogen oxidation can increase oxygen demand at the rate of 4.3 kg
(4.3 lb) of oxygen/kg (lb) of ammonia nitrogen oxidized.
At low oxygen-transfer rates more excess activated sludge must be removed from the system than
at high oxygen-transfer rates. Here again the economics of sludge handling must be balanced
against the cost of oxygen transfer. The quantity of waste activated sludge will depend upon
wastewater characteristics. The inert suspended solids entering the treatment system must be
removed with the excess activated sludge. The soluble organics are stabilized by converting a
portion of the organics into suspended solids, producing from 0.3 to 0.8 kg (0.3 to 0.8 lb) of volatile
suspended solids/kg (lb) of BOD5 stabilized.
Biodegradable suspended solids in the wastewaters will result in destruction of the original
suspended solids and their conversion to a new form. Depending upon the chemical characteristics
of the biodegradable suspended solids, the conversion factor will range from 0.7 to 1.2 kg (0.7 to
1.2 lb) of microbial solids produced/kg (lb) of suspended solids destroyed. If the suspended solids
produced by metabolism are not wasted from the system, they will eventually be discharged in the
effluent. While considerable efforts have been directed toward developing activated-sludge systems
which totally consume the excess solids, no such system has proved to be practical.The concept of
total oxidation of excess sludge is fundamentally unsound and should be recognized as such.

These tanks are an integral part of any activated-sludge system. It is essential
to separate the suspended solids from the treated liquid if a high-quality effluent is to be produced.
Circular sedimentation tanks with various types of hydraulic sludge collectors have become the
standard secondary sedimentation system. Square tanks have been used with common-wall
construction for compact design with multiple tanks. Most secondary sedimentation tanks use
center-feed inlets and peripheral-weir outlets. Recently, efforts have been made to employ
peripheral inlets with submerged orifice flow controllers and either center-weir outlets or peripheral
weir outlets adjacent to the peripheral-inlet channel.
Scum baffles around the periphery of the sedimentation tank and radial scum collectors are standard
equipment to ensure that rising solids or other scum materials are removed as quickly as they form.
48
Hydraulic sludge-collection tubes have replaced the center sludge well, but they have caused a new
set of operational problems. These tubes were designed to remove the settled sludge at a faster rate
than conventional sludge scrapers. To obtain good hydraulic distribution in the sludge-collection
tubes, it was necessary to increase the rate of return sludge flow and decrease the concentration of
return sludge.
The higher total inflow to the sedimentation tank created increased forces that lifted the settled-
solids blanket at the wall, causing loss of excessive suspended solids and lower effluent quality.
Operating data tend to favor conventional secondary sedimentation tanks over hydraulic sludge-
collection systems. Return-sludge rates normally range from 25 to 50 percent for MLSS
concentrations up to 3300 mg/L. Most return-sludge pumps are centrifugal pumps with capacities
up to 100 percent raw-waste flow.
Gravity settling can concentrate activated sludge to 10,000 mg/L, but hydraulic sludge-collecting
tubes tend to operate best below 8,000 mg/L. The excess activated sludge can be wasted either from
the return sludge or from a separate waste-sludge hopper near the center of thetank. The low solids
concentrations result in large volumes of waste activated sludge in comparison with primary sludge.
Unfortunately, the physical characteristics of waste activated sludge prevent significant
concentration without the expenditure of considerable energy. Gravity thickening can produce 2
percent solids, while air flotation can produce 4 percent solids concentration. Centrifuges are able to
concentrate activated sludge from 10 to 15 percent solids, but the capture is limited.
Vacuum filters can equal the performance of centrifuges if the sludge is chemically conditioned.
Filter presses and belt-press filters can produce cakes with 15 to 25 percent solids. It is very
important that the excess activated sludge formed in the aeration tanks be wasted on a regular basis;
otherwise, effluent quality will deteriorate. Care should be taken to ensure that sludge-thickening
systems do not control activated sludge operations. Alternative sludge-handling provisions should
be available during maintenance on sludge-thickening equipment. At no time should final
sedimentation tanks be used for the storage of sludge beyond that required by daily operational
variations.

/

The activated sludge concept (i.e., suspended growth reactor)
can be used for anaerobic or anoxic systems in which no oxygen or air is added to the reactor. An
49
anoxic activated sludge is used for systems in which removal of nitrate is a goal or where nitrate is
used as the electron acceptor. These systems(denitrification) will be successful if the nitrate is
reduced to low levels in the reactor so that nitrate reduction to nitrogen gas does not take place in
the clarifier-thickener. Nitrogen gas production in the clarifier will result in escape of biological
solids with the effluent as nitrogen bubbles floating sludge to the clarifier surface. For nitrogen
reduction, a source of organics (electron donor) is required. Any inexpensive carbohydrate can be
effectively used for nitrate removal.
Many systems utilize methanol as the donor because it is rapidly metabolized; others use the
organics in sewage in order to reduce chemical costs. Nitrate reduction is invariably used as part of
a system in which organics and nitrogen removal are goals. In such systems, the nitrogen in the
waste is first oxidized to nitrate and then reduced to nitrogen gas. Anaerobic activated sludge has
been used for strong industrial wastes high in degradable organic solids. In these systems, a high
rate of gasification takes place in the sludge separator so that a highly clarified effluent is usually
not obtained. A vacuum degasifier is incorporated in such systems to reduce solids loss. Such
systems have been used primarily with meat packing wastes that are warm, high in BOD and yield a
high level of bicarbonate buffer as a result of ammonia release from protein breakdown.
All of these conditions favor anaerobic processing. The use of this process scheme provides a high
BSRT (15±30 days), usually required for anaerobic treatment, at a low HRT (1±2 days).

Lagoons are low-cost, easy-to-operate wastewater treatment systems capable of producing
satisfactory effluents. Nominally,a lagoon is a suspended-growth no-recycle reactor with a variable
degree of mixing. In lagoons in which mechanical or diffused aeration is used, mixing may be
sufficient to approach complete mixing (i.e., solids maintained in suspension). In other types of
lagoons, most solids settle and remain on the lagoon bottom, but some mixing is achieved as a
result of gas production from bacterial metabolism and wind action. Lagoons are categorized as
aerobic, facultative, or anaerobic on the basis of degree of aeration. Aerobic lagoons primarily
depend on mechanical or diffused air supply. Significant oxygen supply is also realized through
natural surface aeration. A facultative lagoon is dependent primarily on natural surface aeration and
oxygen generated by algal cells. These two lagoon types are relatively shallow to encourage surface
aeration and provide for maximum algal activity.
50
The third type of lagoon is maintained under anaerobic conditions to foster methane fermentation.
This system is often covered with floating polystyrene panels to block surface aeration and help
prevent a drop in temperature. Anaerobic lagoons are several meters deeper than the other two
types. Lagoon flow schemes can be complex, employing lagoons in series and recycle from
downstream to upstream lagoons. The major effect of recycle is to maintain control of the solids. If
solids escape the lagoon system, a poor effluent is produced.Periodically controlled solids removal
must take place or solids will escape.
Lagoons are, in effect, inexpensive reactors. They are shallow basins either cut below grade or
formed by dikes built above grade or a combination of a cut and dike. The bottom must be lined
with an impermeable barrier and the sides protected from wind erosion.These systems are best used
where large areas of inexpensive land are available.

These lagoons have been designed to use both aerobic and anaerobic
reactions. Normally, facultative lagoons consist of two or more cells in series. The settleable solids
tend to settle out in the first cell and undergo anaerobic metabolism with the production of organic
acids and methane gas, which bubbles out to the atmosphere. Algae at the surface of the lagoon
utilize sunlight for their energy in converting carbon dioxide, water, and ammonium ions into algal
protoplasm with the release of oxygen as a waste product.
Aerobic bacteria utilize the oxygen released by the algae to stabilize the soluble and colloidal
organics. Thus, the bacteria and algae form a symbiotic relationship as shown in Fig. 25-56. The
interesting aspect of facultative lagoons is that the organic matter in the incoming wastewaters is
not stabilized but rather is converted to microbial protoplasm,which has a slower rate of oxygen
demand. In fact, in some facultative lagoons inorganic compounds in the wastewaters are converted
to organic compounds with a total increase in organics within the lagoon system.
Facultative lagoons are designed on the basis of organic load in relationship to the potential sunlight
availability. In the northern part of the United States facultative lagoons are designed on the basis of
2.2 g/(m2.day) [20 lb BOD5/(acre.day)]. In the middle part of the United States the organic load can
be increased to 3.4 to 4.5 g/(m2.day) [30 to 40 lb BOD5/(acre.day)], while in the southern part the
organic load can be increased to 6.7 g/(m2.day) [60 lb BOD5/(acre.day)]. The depth of lagoons is
normally maintained between 1.0 and 1.7 m (3 and 5 ft). A depth less than 1.0 m (3 ft) encourages
the growth of aquatic weeds and permits mosquito breeding. In dry areas the maximum depth may
51
be increased above 1.7 m (5 ft) depending upon evaporation. Most facultative lagoons depend upon
natural wind action for mixing and should not be placed in screened areas where wind action is
blocked.
Effluent quality from facultative lagoons is related primarily to the suspended solids created by
living and dead microbes. The long retention period in the lagoons allows the microbes to die off,
leaving a small particle that settles slowly. The release of nutrients from the dead microbes permits
the algae to survive by recycling the nutrients.
Thus, the algae determine the ultimate effluent quality. Use of series ponds with well-designed
transfer structures between ponds permits maximum retention of algae within the ponds and the
best-quality effluent. Normally the soluble BOD5 is under 5 or 10 mg/L with a total effluent BOD5
under 30 mg/L. The effluent suspended solids will vary widely during the different seasons of the
year, being a maximum of 70 to 100 mg/L in the summer months and a minimum of 10 to 20 mg/L
in the winter months. If suspended-solids removal is essential, chemical precipitation is the best
method available at the present time. Slow sand filters and rock filters have been studied for
suspended-solids removal; they work well as long as the effluent suspended solids are relatively
low, 40 to 70 mg/L.

These lagoons originated from efforts to control overloaded facultative lagoons.
Since the lagoons were deficient in oxygen, additional oxygen was supplied by either mechanical
surface aerators or diffused aerators. Mechanical surface aerators were quickly accepted as the
primary aerators because they could be quickly added to existing ponds and moved to strategic
locations.
Unfortunately, the high-speed, floating surface aeration units were not efficient, and large numbers
were required for existing lagoons.
The problem was simply one of poor mixing in a very shallow lagoon.Eventually, diffused aeration
equipment was added to relatively deep lagoons [3.0 to 6.0 m (10 to 20 ft)]. Mixing became the
most significant parameter for good oxygen transfer in aerated lagoons. From an economical point
of view, it was found that a completely mixed aerated lagoon with 24-h retention provided the best
balance between mixing and oxygen transfer. As the organic load increased, the fluid retentiontime
also increased. Short-term aeration permitted metabolism of the soluble organics by the bacteria,
but time did not permit metabolism of the suspended solids. The suspended solids were combined
52
with the microbial solids produced from metabolism and discharged from the aerated lagoon to a
solids-separation pond. Data from the short-term aerated lagoon indicated that 50 percent BOD5
stabilization occurred, with conversion of the soluble organics to microbial cells. The problem was
separation and stabilization of the microbial cells. Short-term sedimentation ponds permitted
separationof the solids without significant algae growths but required cleaningat frequent intervals
to keep them from filling with solids and flowing into the effluent. Long-term lagoons permitted
solids separationand stabilization but also permitted algae to grow and affect effluentquality.
Aerated lagoons were simply dispersed microbial reactors which permitted conversion of the
organic components in the wastewaters to microbial solids without stabilization. The residual
organics in solution were very low, less than 5 mg/L BOD5. By adding oxygen and improving
mixing, the microbial metabolism reaction was speeded up, but the stabilization of the microbial
solids has remained a problem to besolved.

These lagoons were developed when a major fraction of the organic
contaminants consisted of suspended solids that could be removed easily by gravity sedimentation.
The anaerobic lagoons are relatively deep [8.0 to 6.0 m (10 to 20 ft)], with a short fluid-retention
time (3 to 5 days) and a high BOD5 loading rate, up to 3.2 kg/(m3.day) [200 lb/(1000 ft3.day)].
Microbial metabolism in the settled-solids layer produces methane and carbon dioxide, which
quickly rise to the surface, carrying some of the suspended solids. A scum layer that retards oxygen
transfer and release of obnoxious gases is quickly produced in anaerobic lagoons. Mixing with a
grinder pump can provide a better environment for metabolism of the suspended solids. The key for
anaerobic lagoons is adequate buffer to keep the pH between 6.5 and 8.0. Protein wastes have
proved to be the best pollutants to be treated by anaerobic lagoons, with the ammonium ions
reacting with carbon dioxide and water to form ammonium bicarbonate as the primary buffer. High-
carbohydrate wastes are poor in anaerobic lagoons since they produce organic acids without
adequate buffer, making it difficult to maintain a suitable pH for good microbial growth.
Anaerobic lagoons do not produce a high-quality effluent but are able to reduce the BOD load by
80 to 90 percent with a minimum of effort. Since anaerobic lagoons work best on strong organic
wastes, their effluent must be treated by either aerated lagoons or facultative lagoons. An anaerobic
lagoon is simply the first stage in the treatment of strong organic wastewaters.
53

"$.C.0Schematic diagram of oxidation-pond operations.

"< ")+ ! 3+ A major advantage of fixed film systems is that a flocculent-type
biomass is not necessary as the biomass remains in the reactor attached to inert packing. Biomass
does periodically slough off or break away from the packing, usually in large chunks that can be
easily removed in a clarifier. On the other hand, the time of contact between the biomass and the
waste is much shorter than in suspended growth systems, making it difficult to achieve the same
degree of treatment especially in aerobic systems.
Aerobic, anoxic, and anaerobic fixed film systems are utilized for waste treatment.
Aerobic systems including trickling filters and rotating biological contactors (RBC) are operated in
a nonflooded mode to ensure adequate oxygen supply. Other aerobic, anoxic, and anaerobic
systems employ flooded reactors. The most common systems are packed beds (anaerobic trickling
filter) and fluidized or expanded bed systems.
"!;)" ") For years trickling filters were the mainstay of biological wastewater treatment
systems because of their simplicity of design and operation. Trickling filters were displaced as the
primary biological treatment system by activated sludge because of better effluent quality. Trickling
filters are simply fixed-medium biological reactors with the wastewaters being spread over the
surface of a solid medium where the microbes are growing. The microbes remove the organics from
the wastewaters flowing over the fixed medium. Oxygen from the air permits aerobic reactions to
occur at the surface of the microbial layer, but anaerobic metabolism occurs at the bottom of the
microbial layer where oxygen does not penetrate.
Originally, the medium in trickling filters was rock, but rock has largely been replaced by plastic,
which provides greater void space per unit of surface area and occupies less volume within the
filter. A plastic medium permitted trickling filters to be increased from a medium depth of 1.8 m (6
54
ft) to one of 4.2 m (14 ft) and even 6.0 m (20 ft). The wastewaters are normally applied by a rotary
distributor or a fixed spray nozzle. The spraying or discharging of wastewaters above the trickling-
filter medium permits better distribution over the medium and oxygen transfer before reaching the
medium. The effluent from the trickling-filter medium is captured in a clay-tile underdrain system
or in a tank below the plastic medium. It is important that the bottom of the trickling filter be open
for air to move quickly through the filter and bring adequate oxygen for the microbial reactions.
If a high-quality effluent is required, trickling filters must be operated at a low hydraulic-loading
rate and a low organic-loading rate.
Low-rate trickling filters are operated at hydraulic loadings of 2.2 × 10í5 to 4.3 × 10í5 m3/(m2.s) [2
million to 4 million gal/(acre.day)].High-rate trickling filters are designed for 10.8 × 10í5 to 40.3 ×
10í5 m3/(m2.s) [10 million to 40 million gal/(acre.day)] hydraulic loadings and organic loadings up
to 1.4 kg/(m3.day) [90 lb BOD5/(1000 ft3.day)]. Plastic-medium trickling filters have been designed
to operate up to 108 × 10í5 m3/(m2.s) [100 million gal/(acre.day)] or even higher, with organic
loadings up to 4.8 kg/(m3.day) [300 lb BOD5/ (1000 ft3.day)]. Low-rate trickling filters will produce
better than 90 percent BOD5 and suspended-solids reductions, while high-rate trickling filters will
produce from 65 to 75 percent BOD5 reduction. Plastic- medium trickling filters will produce from
59 to 85 percent BOD5 reduction depending upon the organic-loading rate. It is important to
recognize that concentrated industrial wastes will require considerable hydraulic recirculation
around the trickling filter to obtain the proper hydraulic-loading rate without excessive organic
loads. With high recirculation rates the organic load is distributed over the entire volume of the
trickling filter for maximum organic removal. The short fluid-retention time within the trickling
filter is the primary reason for the low treatment efficiency.

" ")"!) ! ?7 The newest form of trickling filter is the rotating
biological contactor with a series of circular plastic disks, 3.0 to 3.6 m (10 to 12 ft) in diameter,
immersed to approximately 40 percent diameter in a shaped contact tank. The RBC disks rotate at 2
to 5 r/min. As the disks travel through the wastewaters, a small layer adheres to them. As the disks
travel into the air, the microbes on the disk surface oxidize the organics. Thus, only a small amount
of energy is required to supply the required oxygen for wastewater treatment. As the microbes build
up on the plastic disks,the shearing velocity that is created by the movement of the disks through
55
the water causes the excess microbes to be removed from the disks and discharged to the final
sedimentation tank.
Rotating biological contactors have been very popular in treating industrial wastes because of their
relatively small size and their low energy requirements. Unfortunately, there have occurred a
number of problems which should be recognized prior to using RBCs. Strong industrial wastes tend
to create excessive microbial growths which are not easily sheared off and which create high
oxygen-demand rates with the production of hydrogen sulfide and other obnoxious odors.
The heavy microbial growths have damaged some of the disks and caused some shaft failures. The
disks are currently being covered with plastic shells to prevent nuisance odors from occurring. Air
must be forced through the covered RBC systems and be chemically treated before being
discharged back into the environment. Recirculation of wastewater flow around the RBC units can
distribute the load over all the units and reduce the heavy initial microbial growths. RBC units also
work best under uniform organic loads, requiring surge tanks for many industrial wastes. The net
result has been for the cost of RBC units to approach that of other treatment units in terms of
organic matter stabilized.
RBCs should be designed on both a hydraulic-loading rate and an organic-loading rate. Normally,
hydraulic-loading rates of up to 0.16 m3/(m2.day) [4 gal/(ft2.day)] of surface area are used with
organic loading rates up to 44 kg/(m2.day) [9 lb BOD5/(ft2.day)]. Treatment efficiency is primarily a
function of the fluid-retention time and the organic-loading rate. At low organic-loading rates the
RBC units will produce nitrification in the same way as low-rate trickling filters.

!;C "<C ")+3+These systems were originally termed anaerobic trickling filters
because the first systems were submerged columns filled with stones run under anaerobic
conditions (Fig. 25-57). A wide variety of packed media is now used ranging in size from granules
40 mesh to 7.5-cm (3íin) stones. Many systems use open structure plastic packing similar to that
used in aerobic trickling filters.
The systems using granular media packing are used for anoxic denitrification. They are usually
downflow, thus serving the dual function of filtration and denitrification. Contact times are short
(EBCT < 15 min), but excellent removal is achieved due to the high level of biomass retained in the
reactor. Pacing the methanol dose to the varying feed nitrate concentration is crucial. Frequent,
short-duration backwash (usually several times per day) is required or the nitrogen bubbles formed
56
will bind the system, causing poor results. Extended backwash every two to three days is required
or the system will clog on the biomass growth. Thus, several units in parallel or a large holding tank
are needed to compensate for the down time during backwash. Backwash does not remove all the
biomass; a thin film remains coating the packing. Thus, denitrification begins immediately when
theflow is restored.
The systems using the larger packing are used in the treatment of relatively strong, low-suspended-
solids industrial waste. These systems are closed columns usually run in an upflow mode with a gas
space at the top. These are operated under anaerobic conditions with waste conversion to methane
and carbon dioxide as the goal. Effluent recycle is often used to help maintain the pH in the inlet
zone in the correct range 6.5±7.5 for the methane bacteria. Some wastes require the addition of
alkaline material to prevent a pH drop. Sodium bicarbonate is often recommended for pH control
because it is easier to handle than lime or sodium hydroxide, and because an overdose of
bicarbonate will only raise the pH modestly. An overdose of lime or sodium hydroxide can easily
raise the pH above 8.0. Table 25-44 gives some performance data with systems treating industrial
wastes. HRTs of 1 to 2 days are used, as the buildup of growth on the packing ensures a BSRT of
20±50 days. It should be possible to lower the HRT further, but in practice this has not been
successful because biomass starts to escape from the system or plugging occurs. Some escape is due
to high gasification rates, and some is due to the fact that anaerobic sludge attaches less tenaciously
to packing than aerobic or anoxic sludge. These systems can handle wastes with moderate solids
levels.
Periodically, solids must be removed from the reactor to prevent plugging of the packing or loss of
solids in the effluent.
Fig : Anaerobic process

57
")"!) ) ""6 This high-rate process has been used successfully for aerobic, anoxic,
and anaerobic treatment of municipal and industrial wastewaters. Numerous small- and largescale
applications for hazardous waste, contaminated groundwater, nontoxic industrial waste and
municipal wastewater have been reported . The basic element of the process is a bed of solid carrier
particles, such as sand or granular activated carbon, placed in a reactor through which wastewater is
passed upflow with sufficient velocity to impart motion or fluidize the carrier. An active growth of
biological organisms grow as firmly attached mass surrounding each of the carrier particles. As the
wastewater contaminants pass by the biologically covered carrier, they are removed from the
wastewater through biological and adsorptive mechanisms. Figure 25-58 is a schematic of the
process.
The influent wastewater enters the reactor through a pipe manifold and is introduced downflow
through nozzles that distribute the flow uniformly at the base of the reactor. Reversing direction at
the bottom, the flow fluidizes the carrier when the fluid drag overcomes the buoyant weight of the
carrier and its attached biomass layer. During startup (before much biomass has accumulated), the
flow velocity required to achieve fluidization is higher than after the biomass attaches. Recycle of
treated effluent is adjusted to achieve the desired degree of fluidization. As biomass accumulates,
the particles of coated biomass will separate to a greater extent at constant flow velocity.
Thus, as the system ages and more biomass accumulates, the extent of bed expansion increases (the
volume of voids increases). This phenomenon is advantageous because it prevents clogging of the
bed with biomass. Consequently, higher levels of biomass attachment are possible than in other
types of fixed film systems. However, eventually, the degree of bed expansion may become
excessive. Reduction of recycle will reduce expansion but may not be feasible because recycle has
several purposes (i.e., supply of nutrients, alkalinity, and dilution of waste strength). Control of the
expanded bed surface level is automatically accomplished using a sensor that activates a biomass
growth control system at a prescribed level and maintains the bed at the proper depth. A pump
removes a portion of the attached biomass, separates the biomass and inert carrier by abrasion, and
pumps the mixture into a separator. Here the heavy carrier settles back into the fluidized bed and
the abraded biomass, which is less dense, is removed from the system by gravity or a second pump.
Other growth control designs are also used. Effluent is withdrawn from the supernatant layer above
the fluidized bed. The reactor is usually not covered unless it is operating under anaerobic
conditions and methane, odorous gases, or other safety precautions are mandated.
58
When aerobic treatment is to be provided to high concentrations of organics, pure oxygen or

hydrogen peroxide may be injected into the wastewater prior to entering the reactor. Liquid oxygen
(LOX) or pressure swing absorption (PSA) systems have been used to supply oxygen. Air may be
used at low D.O. demands.
In full-scale applications, this process has been found to operate at significantly higher volumetric
loading rates for wastewater treatment than other processes. The primary reasons for the very high
rates of contaminant removal is the high biologically active surface area available(approximately
1000 ft2/ft3 of reactor) and the high concentration of reactor biological solids (8,000±40,000 mg/L)
that can be maintained. Because of these atypical high values, designs usually indicate a 200±500
percent reduction in reactor volume when compared to other fixed film and suspended growth
treatment processes.
Of special note is the enhancement to the process when granular activated carbon (GAC) is used as
the carrier. Because GAC has adsorptive properties, organic compounds present in potable waters
and wastewater at low concentrations, often less than ten mg/L, are removed by adsorption and
subsequently consumed by the biological organisms that grow in the fluidized bed. The BTEX
compounds, methylene chloride, chlorobenzene, plastics industry toxic effluent, and many others
are removed in this manner. BTEX contamination of groundwater from leaking gasoline storage
tanks is a major problem, and sixteen full-scale fluidized bed process applications have been made.
Contaminated groundwater is pumped to the ground surface for treatment using the fluidized bed in
the aerobic mode. Often the level of BTEX is 1±10 mg/L and about 99 percent is removed in less
than ten minutes detention time. Installations in operation range in size from 30 to 3000 gpm. The
smaller installations are often skidmounted and may be moved from location to location at a given
site.
A major advantage of this process over stripping towers and vacuum systems for treating volatile
organics (VOCs) is the elimination of effluent gas treatment.
59
"$.C.-Schematic of fluidized bed process.
A third type of reactor system with some similarity is the upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB)
system. Here, a flocculent biomass is retained in the reactor with no recycle of sludge necessary.
The sludge is maintained in the system by the use of a relatively low flow rate. The sludge formed
seems to be granular in nature and has a relatively high specific gravity.
It is thought that the presence of small particles of CaCO3 and/or clay in the waste may contribute
to the formation of the dense sludge.
A diagram of this system is shown in Fig. 25-56. The supplier of this system provides a startup seed
of this granular-type biomass. The anaerobic filter, UASB, and fluidized bed reactors have all been
used for anaerobic treatment of industrial wastes, as each is specially suited for use in anaerobic
treatment.
"%")"3(")"!)+!
When the waste substances are biodegradable,with or without acclimatization,the biological process
is by far the most desirable treatment process.The treatability of an industrial waste may be assessed
by conducting laboratory tests on BOD/COD ratio.If the ratio is greater than 0.6,the wastes are
biologically treatable without acclimatization;if the ratio ranges from 0.3 to 0.6,the waste needs
acclimatization for biological treatment; if the ratio is less than 0.3,other methods are suggested for
the treatment.The acclimatization involves the gradual exposure of the waste in increasing
concentration to the seed or initial microbiological population,under a controlled condition.
This design criteria for the conventional biological treatment processes may be different for different
types of industrial wastes.The system parameters for particular type of industrial wastes may be
60
determined by laboratory experiments.In the absence of any actual test result,the performance data
of similar type of waste may be used for design.
In some cases,while the commonly available microbiological population fails to achieve the
biological oxidation,some special type of micro-organisms do well. So,for the effective metabolism
of some complex organic substances,development of suitable microbial culture containing specific
group of organisms is necessary. As for example,some micro organisms which are phenolytic in
action,and often found in well manured soil,have been identified,and are employed in the activated
sludge treatment of coke oven effluents.
Most of the industrial wastes don¶t contain sufficient amount of nutrients for good microbial
growth.For effective biological treatment of this type of wastes nutrients are added to the reactors in
the form of Urea,Superphosphate or any other compound containing Nitrogen and Phosphorus. For a
balanced growth of micro-organisms in a rector,the BOD : N : P ratios of 100 : 5: 1 in aerobic
systems and 100 : 2.5 : 0.5 in anaerobic systems are to be maintained.
Special care should be taken in regard to the toxic wastes.Toxicity may be of acute or chronic
type,and may be to humans,plants,animals or to micro-organisms responsible for aerobic or
anaerobic biological treatment.Some of the toxic wastes like phenols,cyanides,formaldehydes etc.
yield to acclimatized growths of normal or special type of bacteria.Some other toxic metal ions like
Copper,Zinc,Chromium etc. interfere with the biological oxidation by tying up the enzymes
essentially required for microbial growth.As such these must be pretreated chemically before the
waste is subjected to biological treatment.

72!A"3+?/3"!)C/+"!)+7
Some of the industrial wastes,amenable to biological treatment,may require prior physical
treatment; some requires only chemical treatment without any biological treatment.Some of the
chemical and physico-chemical processes employed in the Industrial wastes treatment for the
removal of dissolved inorganic materials are :
(i) Reverse osmosis,
(ii) Electrodialysis,
(iii) Chemical oxidation,
(iv) Chemical precipitation,
(v) Adsorption,
61
(vi) Ion Exchange,

(vii)Thermal Reduction,
(viii)Air stripping.
By these processes,refractory organic compounds,colours,tastes,ionic and molecular contaminants,
plant nutrients etc can be removed.
r r
When a permeable membrane separates a dilute and concentrated solution,the osmotic pressure
drives the water molecules from the dilute solution,through the membrane to establish an
equilibrium.This natural response is reversed in the reverse osmosis process,where the waste water
containing dissolved salts are filtered through a semipermeable membrane such as cellulose acetate
at a pressure higher than the osmotic pressure.In this type of treatment,pretreatment of the waste
such as Activated carbon adsorption or chemical precipitation followed by some kind of filtration is
necessary.
rr r r

In electrodialysis,the flow of ionic substances is initiated by providing an electrical potential
between two electrodes and the substances are filtered by using an ion-selective membrane ahead of
the electrodes.The separation of substances in this process requires sets of alternate cation and anion
permeable membranes in between the electrodes as shown in the following schematic diagram :
E- C A C A C A E+ Legend :
C = Cation Permeable Membrane,
A = Anion Permeable Membrane,
E+ = Cathode,
+ + + + - E- = Anode,
ĺ ĸ - ĸ - ĸ - ĸ CW = Concentrated waste,
ĺ ĺ ĺ DW = Diluted waste.
CW DW CW DW CW DW CW
Fig 1 : Schematic diagram of Electrodylasis Process

When the wastewater is passed through such cells,alternate cells of concentrated and dilute wastes
are formed.Electrodialysis also requires some pre-treatment as in reverse osmosis.
62
rrr
r r r
The chemical oxidation consists of addition of chemicals like chlorine & ozone to reduce the BOD
loading on the subsequent biological process,or to reduce substances like ammonia,cyanide etc.
r
r rr r
Chemical precipitation consists of coagulation either by alum or ferric salts as well as treatment of
lime.
r
Adsorption involves the passage of pre-treated waste water through fixed bed Activated Carbon
column,and and is used only as a tertiary treatment unit,to remove non-biodegradable organics like
synthetic detergents,colour and odour.The regeneration of the exhausted bed is accomplished by
oxidizing and thus removing the adsorbed organics in a furnace at a temperature of about
925ÛC.Other commercially available materials like clay,fly ash etc.are also recommended as
potential adsorbents.
r

Ion exchange involves similar passage of wastewater through a fixed bed synthetic ion exchange
resin bed,where some of the undesirable cations or anions of the waste are exchanged for Sodium or
Hydrogen ions of the resin. Ion exchange bed requires regeneration,and special care should be taken
for the treatment of the waste produced due to regeneration.

rr
r
Thermal reduction involves the burning and thereby oxidation of some refractory and toxic
substances( like organic cyanide).
rrr rrr
Air stripping involves the passage( down flow) of a liquid waste through a packed tower,which is
equipped with an air blower at the bottom.This process is a modification of aeration process used for
the removal of gases from the waste water.
63
Figure : Air Stripping Process.
The chemical and physico-chemical treatments involve a significant recurring cost,and chemical
oxidation and precipitation required additional facilities for the treatment of large quantity of sludge
produced. So,the chemical treatment should be provided only when it becomes unavoidable.

%:!"2 Sludges consist primarily of the solids removed from liquid wastes during their
processing. Thus, sludges could contain a wide variety of pollutants and residuals from the
application of treatment chemicals; i.e., large organic solids, colloidal organic solids, metal sulfides,
heavy-metal hydroxides and carbonates, heavy-metal organic complexes, calcium and magnesium
hydroxides, calcium carbonate, precipitated soaps and detergents, and biomass and precipitated
phosphates. As sludge even after extensive concentration and dewatering is still greater than 50
percent by weight water, it can also contain soluble pollutants such as ammonia, priority pollutants,
and nonbiologically degradable COD.
The general treatment or management of sludge involves stabilization of biodegradable organics,
concentration and dewatering, and ultimate disposal of the stabilized and dewatered residue. A large
number of individual unit processes and unit operations are used in a sludge-management scheme.
Those most frequently used are discussed below. Occasionally, only one of these is needed, but
usually several are used in a series arrangement.
Because of the wide variability in sludge characteristics and the variation in acceptability of treated
sludges for ultimate disposal (this is a function of the location and characteristics of the ultimate
64
disposal site), it is impossible to prescribe any particular sludge-management plan. In the lines
below, name of individual sludge treatment processes and operations is presented :
1) Increasing Concentration of sludges: i)Thickening and ii)Flotation.
2) Stabilization of sludges : i) Anaerobic Digestion, ii) Aerobic Digestion,

iii) High Lime Treatment.
3) Dewatering of sludges : i) Centrifugation , ii)Vacuum Filtration , iii)Pressure Filtration,
iv) Belt-Press Filter , v)Sand Beds.

!"" Incineration has been used to reduce the volume of sludge after dewatering. The
organic fractions in sludges lend themselves to incineration if the sludge does not have an excessive
water content. Multiple-hearth and fluid-bed incinerators have been extensively used for sludge
combustion.
A multiple-hearth incinerator consists of several hearths in a vertical cylindrical furnace. The
dewatered sludge is added to the top hearth and is slowly pushed through the incinerator, dropping
by gravity to the next lower layer until it finally reaches the bottom layer. The top layer is used for
drying the sludge with the hot gases from the lower layers. As the temperature of the furnace
increases, the organics begin to degrade and undergo combustion. Air is used to add the necessary
oxygen and to control the temperature during combustion.
It is very important to keep temperatures above 600° C to ensure complete oxidation of the volatile
organics. One of the problems with the multiple-hearth incinerator is volatilization of odorous
organics during the drying phase before the temperature reaches combustion levels. Even
afterburners on the exhaust-gas line may not be adequate for complete oxidation. Air-pollution-
control devices are required on all incinerators to remove fly ash and corrosive gases. The ash from
the incinerator must be cooled, collected, and conveyed back to the environment, normally to a
sanitary landfill for burial. The residual ash will weigh from 10 to 30 percent of the original dry
weight of the sludge. Supplemental fuels are needed to start the incinerator and to ensure adequate
temperatures with sludges containing excessive moisture, such as activated sludge. Heat recovery
from wastes is being given more consideration. It is possible to combine the sludges with other
wastes to provide a better fuel for the incinerator.
65
A fluid-bed incinerator uses hot sand as a heat reservoir for dewatering the sludge and combusting
the organics. The turbulence created by the incoming air and the sand suspension requires the
effluent gases to be treated in a wet scrubber prior to final discharge. The ash is removed from the
scrubber water by a cyclone separator. The scrubber water is normally returned to the treatment
process and diluted with the total plant effluent. The ash is normally buried.
"3("))Dewatered sludge, either raw or digested, is often buried in a sanitary landfill to
minimize the environmental impact. Increased concern over sanitary landfills has made it more
difficult simply to bury dewatered sludge. Sanitary landfills must be made secure from leachate and
be monitored regularly to ensure that no environmental damage occurs. The moisture content of
most sludges makes them a problem at sanitary landfills designed for solid wastes, requiring
separate burial even at the same landfill.
," The nutrient content of most sludges makes them useful as fertilizers or as soil
conditioners if properly mixed with the surface soil. Land spreading has gained in popularity in
agricultural areas. Normally, the rate of application of sludge to land is controlled by the nitrogen
content of the sludge. Since nitrogen uptake varies with different crops, nitrogen application is
limited to approximately twice the annual uptake of nitrogen by the proposed crop.
Approximately one-half of the nitrogen is readily available in sludge. Nutrient release with sludge
is slower than with chemical fertilizers, allowing the nutrients to become available as the crop needs
it. Activated sludge appears to be an excellent soil conditioner because the humus material in the
sludge provides a good matrix for root growth, while the nutrient elements are released in
approximately the right combination for optimal plant growth. There is a growing concern over
heavy metals in some sludge, and care should be taken to minimize heavy-metal concentrations in
sludges placed on the land. Since heavy metals cannot be easily removed from sludges, it is
important to prevent them from entering the wastewater-treatment system.
Greater concern will be placed on other potentially toxic or hazardous materials, including some
organic compounds such as pesticides and PCBs. Land spreading of sludge requires careful
application of the sludge at the surface and its mixing with the soil. Soil microbes will assist in
further stabilization of any biodegradable organics remaining.
Land spreading of sludge will become more popular as energy and nutrients become scarcer.

66
9)!" ( ,"! ) +/ % " / ** + " ,"! )
" 3,/(() 1 "+/!/!""!(/**It must
be borne in mind that before a treatment policy is fixed up for a particular industry, the scope of
recycling and reclamation(recovery) of the wastes must be considered for a better management of
industrial waste water.Seggregation of strong wastes from the weak wastes sometimes reduces the
problem.
As textile industry wastewater is highly alkaline,it has high amount of BOD, high amount of
suspended solids,chemical and biological treatment methods are chosen to treat wastewater.

In case of Bangladesh,there is no single, ideal ETP for a textile dyeing industry but the best options
consist of several units. The combination of these units will vary depending on the exact type and
function of the processing plant, which is determined to a large degree by the nature of the effluent.
Typically an ETP for a textile industry would consist of primary, secondary and tertiary treatment
to ensure the best performance; however, in countries where resources are limited and factories
must minimize their outgoings, they are less likely to adopt advanced treatment methods. In
Bangladesh for example, ion exchange, electro-dialysis and reverse osmosis have only recently
been introduced for wastewater treatment and the uptake is still limited.
Consequently the combination of units in an ETP in Bangladesh can vary considerably depending
on: the size of the factory; the exact nature of the industrial process and thus the waste being
generated; the funds available to construct and operate the ETP; the compliance criteria specified by
buyers (if any); and the engineering consultants contracted to design and construct the ETP. This
makes is more difficult to create a generic model for monitoring but guidance can be given based on
the type of units and the performance standards typically expected for those units.
A combination of physico-chemical and biological units are most commonly used in textile dyeing
industries in Bangladesh , although pure physicochemical plants have also been observed by the
project team. Depending on the combination of physicochemical and biological units selected the
removal efficiency of key constituents differs: the ranges of percentage removal rates are given in
Table 2. As can be seen they can vary considerably depending on the type of units (for example a
low rate non-submerged trickling filter can achieve a BOD removal efficiency of 80-90 per cent
while the range for a high rate system is 65-90 per cent); the retention time is also an important
factor for certain units, such as sedimentation tanks .
67
Table 2: Typical removal rates for ETP components

+, " E+2)
Fine screens BOD 5-55
TSS 5-55
Primary sedimentation tanks BOD 25-40
TSS 50-70
Depending on type and
detention time
Biological:
Trickling filters BOD 50-90
Activated sludge BOD and TSS Final effluent quality10 mg/L
Anaerobic COD 65-95
Note: removal rate depends on type of system within each category of which there are many.
A typical ETP consists of an entrance-screening unit followed by an equalization tank and the
physicochemical unit, which is usually a combination of neutralization,coagulation, flocculation
and clarifier (primary clarifier) unit. One or more biological treatment units along with a clarifier
are used after the physicochemical treatment units. The number depends on: the quality of the
influent; the performance of previous units; the type of biological unit; and the efficiency of a single
biological unit. Finally, wastewater from the biological unit is treated with filters (generally sand or
activated carbon filters) depending on the wastewater quality. Overall an ETP comprised of an
appropriate combination of physico-chemical and biological treatment units can remove upwards of
90 per cent of BOD and COD .
In addition to BOD, COD and TSS, parameters of importance are colour, odour, total dissolved
solids (TDS), turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, alkalinity, hardness, metals and
ions.
For biological treatment, microorganisms may be monitored along with sludge volume index (SVI)
and stirred sludge volume index (SSVI).
In order to address the issues of increasing water pollution from textile industries and inadequate
treatment, the project ³Managing Pollution from Small and Medium-Scale Industries in
Bangladesh´ was initiated. It was funded by the EU Asia Pro Eco Programme and the DFID
Knowledge and Research Programme, between 2003 and 2006. The aim of the project was to
reduce pollution while maintaining the profitability of the industries and thereby ensure the incomes
of the employees as well as the livelihoods of those who depended on the natural resources that
68
were being impacted. The activities therefore involved cleaner production and improved wastewater
treatment.
The project was implemented by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the Bangladesh
Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) and the University of Leeds, UK.
In this component of the project, the team comprised of :
1.Mohidus Samad Khan of Australian Pulp and Paper Institute, Dept of Chemical Engineering,
Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia;
2.Shoeb Ahmed of Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State
University, Raleigh. NC 27695, USA;
3.Alexandra E. V. Evans of International Water Management Institute, 127 Sunil Mawatha,
Pelawatte, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka;
4.Matthew Chadwick of Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, UK ;worked with a
composite textile industry that had recently introduced an ETP but did not have much experience in
operating it. The purpose of the work was three-fold:
1. To assist in diagnosing any problem with the ETP and to advise the factory team in optimal
management;
2. To initiate a simple but effective system to regularly check the function of the major components
of the ETP in that particular factory and to calculate the overall performance of the system; and
3. To use this to create a generic set of guidelines for other textile factories to develop their own
monitoring procedures.
The data collected by the factories could be used to make the process more efficient and cost
effective; whilst also providing proof to the Department of Environment that they are complying
with the law and to international buyers that they are complying with their corporate environmental
responsibility criteria .
The factory has a conventional ETP with physicochemical and biological units as shown in Figure
1.
69
Figure 1: Block diagram of a model ETP

70
p p p p p p p

71
.2"+)((!(**!"2"+
Water and soil are undoubtedly the most precious natural resource that exists on earth. They are
essential for everything on planet to grow and prosper. Industrial wastes and effluent are
undesirable byproducts of economic development and technological advancement. When
improperly handled and disposed, industrial wastes imperil both human health and environment.
Human exposures to industrial wastes have led to health effects ranging from headaches, nausea,
lung, and skin irritation, to serious ailments like congenital malformation.
³The industrial revolution and our modern civilization turn the soil,water and air we live into waste
basket in which dust, noxious fumes, toxic gases, mist, metals, odor and smoke are thrown.´
(Manivaskam., 1989).
The ecological state of hydrosphere is becoming ever imbalanced due to technical and industrial
advancements as well as population explosion. Vast changes are taking place in the environment
itself. Man is exploiting the natural resources for his own interest and many such instances has
disturbed the environment to such an extent that it is becoming unfit for inhabitation by living
being.
Environmental pollution has been defined as an unfavorable alteration of our surroundings, wholly
or largely as byproducts of man¶s action through direct or indirect effects of changes in energy
patterns, radiation levels, chemical and physical constitutions and abundance of organisms that will
be or may be harmful to human and other lives, living conditions and cultural assets or cause
wastage of our raw material resources (Asthana and Asthana, 2001 ).
Environment and industrial activity are intimately related and utilization of resources without due
consideration of the environment may lead to degradation of it with disastrous consequences.
Environmental pollution through industrialization is now assuming a serious problem throughout
the world. Industrial pollutant refers to the presence of any elemental, ionic or molecular species in
or around an industry or industrial area at a concentration which has been accidentally raised as a
consequence of human activity and causes an adverse effect on life and environment. ³The
recognition of the associated environmental hazards either connected with trace element deficiency
or living organisms or enrichment of toxic metals in the food chain and ground water is justification
for many studies of the reaction of metals such as Mn, Cu, Zn, Cr, Cd, Fe, B and As with soil or
different soil components and model substances to behave like soil materials´ (Kabata and Pendias,
1984).
72
In textile mill dyestuffs are used in dyeing and finishing sections. They are of many structural
varieties, such as, acidic, basic, azo, diazo, anthroquinone based and metal complex dyes. They are
harmful for all living being. Textile industry waste waters and the sludge contain a variety of heavy
metals which can contaminant soils as well as surface and ground water sources when discharged
on land or water body.
The dye related industries in particular, are known to produce consistently toxic effluents that have
been shown by many scientists to be potent relative to other industrial discharges. As industrial
technology improves, the characteristics of industrial discharge sources become complicated and
the toxicity of industrial effluents can also become more complicated and heavier.

.((!(/23+)"**!"2"+?")F*7
Pollution is a fascinating topic of which soil & water pollution are an integral part. Of all the gifts
of nature, none is more indispensable to man than soil. Soil is one of the four requisites for life.
Along with sunlight, air and water, soil nourishes all plant life, most animal life, and supports
human life. Without it, this planet of ours would have been as barren as the moon. Soil is the
primary recipient of many of the waste products and toxic chemicals or pollutants used in modern
industry and contaminated by a number of organic, inorganic compound and heavy metals. The
heavy metals not only affect plants but also affect soil biota especially the bacterial populations
which are associated with almost all of the soil and plant process (Ibekwe °.,1995 ) In this way,
such pollutants are likely to affect directly or indirectly the important natural processes. Among
heavy metals, chromium, cadmium and mercury are extremely poisonous; lead, nickel,
molybdenum and fluorine are moderate; and boron, copper, manganese and zinc are relatively low
in toxicity (Dara, 1997 ).
The uptake of heavy metals by plants from contaminated soils is of great interest because an excess
of dietary intake of some of these heavy metals might be deleterious to the health of the consumers.
The application of waste water to the crop is not new and it has been practiced from ancient days.
This is one of the ways how heavy metals and other pollutants accumulate in plants.
Contaminant or hazards may be defined as something that causes a deviation from the normal
composition of an environment. Contaminants are not classified as pollutants unless they have some
detrimental effects (De, 2000). On the other hand, pollutant is a term which may be defined as a
substance present in nature, in quantities greater than natural abundance due to natural or human
73
activities and that has a detrimental effect on the different entities of environment (Dara, 2002).
These elements are widely used in industry, particularly in metal-working or metal-plating and in
the agriculture. An oversupply of these contaminants produces toxic effect and might be lethal
eventually to the organisms. These are very toxic because, as ions or compound forms, they are
soluble in water and may be readily absorbed into living organisms (Kannan, 1997).
Until now,about 42 trace elements(which are part of hazards) are detected in textile industry
effluents :
1.Titanium, 2.Tin, 3.Iodine, 4.Manganese, 5.Magnesium, 6.Copper, 7.Vanadium, 8.Chlorine,
9.Aluminium, 10.Mercury, 11.Samarium, 12.Tungsten, 13.Molybdenum, 14.Uranium,
15.Lanthanum, 16.Cadmium, 17.Arsenic, 18. Antimony, 19. Zirconium, 20.Bromine,
21.Sodium, 22.Potassium, 23.Cerium, 24. Calcium, 25. Lutetium, 26.Europium,
27.Selenium, 28.Terbium, 29. Thorium, 30.Chromium, 31.Ytterbium, 32. Hafnium,
33. Barium, 34. Neodymium, 35. Cesium, 36. Silver, 37. Nickel, 38. Scandium,
39.Rubidium, 40.Iron, 41.Zinc, 42.Cobalt.
Detrimental effects of some of them on human and aquatic life is given below :
"" +
When titanium compounds react with water,they form hydrochloric acid,and other titanium
compounds, such as titanium hydroxide and titanium oxychlorides. The hydrochloric acid may
break down or be carried in the air. Some of the titanium compounds may settle out to soil or water.
In water, they sink into the bottom sediments.They may remain for a long time in the soil or
sediments.Titanium compounds can be very irritating to the skin, eyes, mucous membranes, and
the lungs. They are corrosive because they react strongly with water to produce hydrochloric
acid. The reaction products, especially hydrochloric acid, cause the harmful health effects and burns
that can occur after exposure to titanium compounds.
"
Various types of tin compounds may be present in textile industry wastewater.Bis(tributyltin) oxide
is one of them.If released to the atmosphere, an estimated vapor pressure of 7.8X10-6 mm Hg at 25
deg C indicates bis(tributyltin) oxide will exist in both the vapor and particulate phases. Vapor-
phase bis(tributyltin) oxidewill be degraded in the atmosphere by reaction with photochemically-
74
produced hydroxyl radicals; the half-life for this reaction in air is estimated to be 1.5 hours.
Particulate-phase bis(tributyltin) oxide will be removed from the atmosphere by wet and dry
deposition. If released to soil, bis(tributyltin) oxidewill be expected to strongly bind to soil and will
have low mobility. Volatilization from near-surface soil is not expected to be an important fate
process. Biodegradation half-lives for bis(tributyltin) oxide range from 15 to 20 weeks in soil. If
released to water, bis(tributyltin) oxide will exist mainly as tributyltin cation which will strongly
bind to sediment. Bis(tributyltin) oxide may react with sulfides present in sediment which would
lead to the formation of bis(tributyltin) sulfide. The photodegradation half-life of bis(tributyltin)
oxidein water will be at least a few to several months. Biodegradation half-lives for bis(tributyltin)
oxide range between 6 days and 35 weeks in water and water-sediment mixtures. Bis(tributyltin)
oxideexpected to exist in the dissociated form in the environment and therefore volatilization from
water surfaces is not expected to be an important fate process. Monitoring studies indicate that
tributyltin cations are very persistent in sediment from the marine environment, especially in anoxic
sediment where half-lives range from 2 to 3 years. Tributyltin cations bioconcentrate in aquatic
organisms. Occupational exposure to bis(tributyltin) oxide may occur through inhalation of dust
and dermal contact with this compound at workplaces where bis(tributyltin) oxide is produced or
used. Monitoring data indicate that the general population may be exposed to bis(tributyltin) oxide
via the ingestion of contaminated fish and other seafood and through dermal exposure to paints and
other products containing the bis(tributyltin) oxide.
" Iodine is an essential constituent in the diet and is required for normal function of the
thyroid gland. Dietary iodine reaches the circulation in the form of iodide (Ií) (Hardman et al.,
1996). Long-term repeated ingestion of iodine in amounts that exceed dietary requirements results
in a toxic syndrome called iodism. Initial symptoms of iodism are an unpleasant brassy taste,
burning of the mouth and throat, and soreness of the teeth and gums. Increased salivation,
inflammation of mucous membranes of the nose (rhinitis), eye and mouth, sneezing, laryngitis,
bronchitis, and skin rashes are frequently observed (Hardman et al., 1996). Prolonged intake of very
large amounts of iodine (approximately ten times the recommended daily dietary allowance) can
lead to enlargement of the thyroid, a condition called goiter (NAS, 1980). Studies of the effects of
long-term inhalation of iodine vapors by humans are not available. Studies in laboratory animals
indicate that long-term inhalation of iodine vapor disrupts thyroid function and reduces the ability
75
of the lungs to take up oxygen. Adverse changes in the lungs of exposed animals include edema,
scaling of bronchial epithelium, and bleeding (HSDB, 2001).. The direct acute toxicity of iodine is
due to its irritant properties (NAS, 1980). In excessive amounts, elemental iodine (I2) is corrosive
and irritates tissue via allroutes of exposure (inhalation, ingestion, and skin contact).
Ingested iodine reportedly has a metallic taste and stains oral mucous membranes brown (HSDB,
2001). The toxic effects of ingested iodine are primarily due to its corrosive action on the
gastrointestinal tract (Hardman et al., 1996). Ingested iodine may cause vomitting, a drop in blood
pressure, headache, and delirium.
Manganese, an essential trace element for aquatic and terrestrial biota, is only
slightly to moderately toxic to aquatic organisms in excessive amounts. It is present in almost all
organisms, and often ameliorates the hazard posed by other metals. It gives water an unpleasant
appearance and taste.
" + Magnesium is present in all natural waters. It is an essential element required in

small amounts by all living organisms. It is a major contributor to drinking water hardness.
,, Copper is an essential substance to human life, but in high doses it can cause anemia,
liver and kidney damage, and stomach and intestinal irritation. People with Wilson's disease are at
greater risk for health effects from overexposure to copper.
Copper poisoning has been observed in kidney dialysis patients due to use of contaminated water or
leaching from dialysis membranes. Acute ingestion of excessive copper can cause the following
symptoms
K Diarrhoea
K Epigastric pain and discomfort
K Blood in the urine
K Liver damage
76
K Low blood pressure

K Nausea
K Vomiting
K Kidney failure due to severe intravascular haemolysis.
B" + Vanadium may cause respiratory problems and inhibition of Na and K in ATP
production in human and plant life.
/)" Chlorine is found naturally as chloride in groundwater. It can cause water to have a
salty taste. Chloride may also be an indicator of saltwater intrusion or sewage contamination.
Chloride is often the first sign of deteriorating groundwater quality.
) " Fluorine is a poisonous pale yellow gaseous element found in Group VIIb (i.e. the
Halogen Group of elements) of the periodic table. Fluorine is the most reactive element known. It
reacts violently with water liberating oxygen and forming hydrofluoric acid (HF). Fluorine even
reacts with some of the normally inert noble gases such as Krypton and Xenon.
Elemental fluorine and the fluoride ion are highly toxic. The free element has a characteristic
pungent odor, detectable in concentrations as low as 20 ppb, which is below the safe working level.
Small amounts of sodium fluoride help reduce tooth cavities, but high levels can harm human
health. In children whose teeth are forming, high fluoride exposure can cause dental fluorosis with
visible changes in the teeth. In adults, high flouride exposure over a long time can lead to skeletal
fluorosis with denser bones, joint pain, and a limited joint movement. This is extremely rare in the
U.S.
Fluorine, hydrogen fluoride, and fluorides have not been classified for carcinogenic effects. Studies
in people have not shown fluorides to be carcinogenic, and the studies in animals are mixed. More
research is in progress.
Acute toxicity has occurred by ingestion of household products containing high levels of fluoride
such as certain insecticides. The mechanism of fluoride toxicity is conversion in the stomach to
77
hydrofluoric acid. Gastrointestinal symptoms predominate and include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,
and abdominal pain.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets a maximum amount of 4 milligrams
fluoride per liter of drinking water (4 mg/L). EPA recommends that states limit fluoride in drinking
water to 2 mg/L.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) limits an 8-hour work day, 40-hour
work week to 0.2 milligrams of fluorides per cubic meter air (0.2 mg/m3). The level for hydrogen
fluoride is 2.5 mg/m3). The highest level of fluoride allowed by OSHA for an 8-hour work day, 40-
hour work week is 2.5 mg/m3.
) +"" +Soluble aluminum salts are irritants when inhaled as aerosols [Hathaway et al. 1991].
Although inhalation of aluminum powder of particle size 1.2 um, given over 10- or 20-minute
periods several times weekly resulted in no adverse health effects among humans over several
years, several other studies report X-ray evidence of pulmonary fibrosis [Hathaway et al. 1991].
Some patients on long-term hemodialysis develop speech disorders, dementia, or convulsions. This
syndrome is associated with increased concentration of aluminum in serum, brain, muscle, and bone
[Amdur et al. 1991; Hathaway et al. 1991]. There is some evidence that Alzheimer's disease may be
linked to aluminum content in the body [Amdur et al. 1991]. Analysis of the aluminum content in
the brains of persons dying from Alzheimer's have shown increased levels, although brain
aluminum levels vary greatly. A second correlating factor is that neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs)
have been identified in both aluminum encephalopathy and in Alzheimer's disease [Amdur et al.
1991]. However, it has been shown that the NFTs produced by the two conditions are structurally
and chemically different and that NFTs are present in several other neurological disorders. It
appears that the aluminum content of the brain is less an issue relating to exposure to aluminum
than an issue of a blood-brain barrier defect or compromise of some kind [Amdur et al. 1991].
! 3 Mercury is a toxic substance which has no known function in human biochemistry or
physiology and does not occur naturally in living organisms. The toxicity of mercury is primarily
associated with ionic Hg(II). However, absorption, tissue distribution and biotransformation are
influenced significantly by the valence state of the metal. Inorganic mercury poisoning is associated
78
with tremors, gingivitis and/or minor psychological changes, together with spontaneous abortion
and congenital malformation.
Ingestion of oxidized mercury can result in abdominal cramping, ulceration and renal toxicity.
Mercury has a strong affinity for sulfur, and mercury's primary mode of toxic action in living
organisms is thought to be the interference of enzyme function and protein synthesis by binding to
sulfhydryl or thiol groups. Because it is a fundamental element, mercury is not metabolized by
Phase I or II reactions, however excretion is associated with oxidation of mercury and mercury
compounds to the water soluble divalent form. Renal excretion is the primary route of elimination
of oxidized mercury, and because of its strong affinity for protein (including that in the epithelium
of the ,/) renal toxicity is commonly associated with mercury exposure. Proteinuria, a
condition in which urine contains an abnormal amount of protein, is one of the primary symptoms
associated with mercury exposure to Hg(II).
By comparison, organic mercury is highly lipophilic (high affinity affinity for fat tissues). Both
MeHg and Hg° cross the placental and blood-brain barrier where they can be oxidized (via the
peroxidase-catalase pathway, which is present in most tissues), trapped and accumulated in these
tissues.
The nervous system is the critical organ for toxic exposure to both methyl and elemental mercury.
Methyl mercury can react directly with important receptors in the nervous system, such as the
acetycholine receptors in the peripheral nerves. The effects of mercury on the nervous system range
from irritability, excitability and parasthesia (numbing of the extremities) at low levels of exposure,
to tremors, violent muscle spasms and death in the extreme. While carcinogenicity and
mutagenicity (the power to cause mutation) are not commonly associated with mercury exposure,
mercury can cross the placental barrier where exposure can lead to spontaneous abortion, congenital
malformations and severe neurological defects such as !%) ,)3. Mercury affects the
developing fetus by interfering with normal neuronal development; it may also affect cell division
during critical stages of formation of the central nervous system.
The model emerging to explain the toxic effect of mercury is a continuous dose-effect relationship
where low level exposure results in subtle changes in brain function as indicated by psychological
79
tests. Recent research also suggests that low level exposure to mercury may potentiate or amplify
the genetic damage associated with environmental mutagens, such as " !)".
Because of the extreme and pronounced toxicity of mercury, environmental contamination due to
increased industrial use of the metal has resulted in many episodes of human poisonings. One of the
earliest and best known examples of environmental mercury poisoning occurred in Japan in 4.'
with the first reported cases of '"+ "'. An international investigation revealed that
inorganic mercury released to Minamata Bay from a nearby acetaldehyde plant had been converted
to methyl mercury by microorganisms in the bay sediments. The MeHg formed was
bioaccumulated by fish and shellfish, a staple of the nearby population. Symptoms of the 'disease'
were typical of MeHg poisoning, ranging from paresthesia to severe birth defects and death.
Minamata was the first identified example of the in situ methylation and bioaccumulation of
mercury in fish. Inorganic mercury released by the plant would have had little impact on human
health because of its poor adsorption. Mercury methylation by naturally occurring benthic
organisms, however, resulted in greatly increased exposure because MeHg is more readily absorbed
by living organisms. Fish can bioamplify MeHg by a factor of one million and are a significant
source of mercury in the diets of humans and other fish loving animals. Minimata demonstrated that
fish and shellfish which accumulated concentrations of MeHg toxic to humans and wildlife showed
no abnormality in many cases.
+" +Cadmium and solutions of its compounds are toxic, particularly in soluble and
respirable forms, being more easily absorbed through inhaled dusts and fumes. Chronic dust or
fume exposure can irreversibly damage the lungs, producing shortness of breath and emphysema.
The risks of absorption via dermal contact is negligible. The International Agency for Research on
Cancer lists cadmium metal and several of its compounds as !!". Because of its toxicity,
the use of cadmium is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other
regulatory control agencies.
Eating food or drinking water with very high levels of chromium severely irritates the stomach,
causing vomiting and diarrhea. Cadmium mainly accumulates in the kidneys and liver and can lead
to serious kidney failure, nephrotoxicity, renal stone formation, bone disease and persistent
80
proteinuria at high exposures. Cadmium stays in the body a very long time and can build up from
many years of exposure to low levels. Recent studies have shown that the effects are reversible at
low exposures, once exposure to cadmium is reduced. Other effects from acute cadmium exposures
include:
K + !)!+,
K )"2"
K 3" %!
K )"2": 3
K !2 )"
K /!;
K )(")
Other potential effects of long-term cadmium exposure include:
K /"/%),
K "C,%)
K )"2"
K 2%"+
K ) +
K (")%
K "")+
A balanced diet can reduce the amount of cadmium taken into the body from food and drink.
Animal studies suggest that more cadmium is absorbed into the body if the diet is low in calcium,
protein, or iron, or is high in fat. Some epidemiological studies have suggested a link between
drinking hard water and some degree of protection from hypertension. In some studies, younger
animals absorbed more cadmium and were more likely to lose bone and bone strength than adult
animals.
Animals exposed en-utero to high cadmium levels suffered behavior abnormalities, learning
deficits, low birth weight, and skeletal abnormalities, but birth defect potential in humans is not
81
well known. Small portions of cadmium can cross the placenta, and cadmium can be present in
breast milk if the mother carries elevated levels.
The major route for cadmium intake for non smokers is ingestion of trace cadmium in foodstuffs of
natural origin or from the use of phosphate fertilizers and sludge on agricultural soils. Smokers have
elevated blood and tissue concentrations of cadmium from cigarette smoke. Whole blood and urine
levels are useful indicators of cadmium exposure. Cadmium toxicity can be assessed by urinary
excretion of low mass proteins such as alpha-1-macroglobulin or retinol binding protein. Long term
exposure causes abnormalities in Ca, P and vitamin D metabolism.
For the general world population, average daily cadmium intake, from all sources, is in the range of
10-25 g/day and has decreased steadily over the past 20 years. Smoking doubles the average daily
intake. The tolerable daily cadmium intake established by the World Health Organization (WHO) is
60 g/day for adult women and 70 g/day for adult men.
Potential sources of cadmium exposure include refinery or smelter dust, plating baths, and silver
soldering. Tobacco leaves naturally accumulate and concentrate relatively high levels of cadmium,
which is volatilized during burning, and contributes significantly to a smoker's exposure to
cadmium. Each cigarette contains from 0.5 to 2.0 g of cadmium, 10% of which is inhaled.
Smokers exhibit significantly elevated cadmium body burdens when compared to non-smokers.
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that cadmium and
cadmium compounds may reasonably be anticipated to be carcinogens.
The EPA has set a limit of 5 parts of cadmium per billion parts of drinking water (5 ppb or 0.005
mg/L). Drinking water levels which are considered "safe" for short-term exposures: For a 10-kg (22
lb.) child consuming 1 liter of water per day, a one- to ten-day exposure to 0.04 mg/L; a longer-
term (up to 7 years) exposure to 0.005 .
Although zinc and cadmium commonly are found together in nature, the two behave different
biologically. While zinc is an essential element in almost all biological systems, playing an
important role in metalloenzyme catalysis, metabolism, and genetic material replication, cadmium
can damage the kidneys and lungs, and is not easily removed from affected tissues.
82
/+" +Chromium often accumulates in aquatic life, adding to the danger of eating fish that
may have been exposed to high levels of chromium.
)" +Selenium is needed by humans and other animals in small amounts, but in larger
amounts can cause damage to the nervous system, fatigue, and irritability. Selenium accumulates in
living tissue, causing high selenium content in fish and other organisms, and causing greater health
problems in human over a lifetime of overexposure. These health problems include hair and
fingernail loss, damage to kidney and liver tissue, damage to circulatory tissue, and more severe
damage to the nervous system.
")2Unlike other "essential" elements such as calcium, human bodies don't need silver to
function. Though silver was once used in medical applications, modern substitutes have largely
superceded these uses, and there would be no ill health effects from going through life without ever
contacting silver.
This does not happen, however. Trace amounts of silver are in the bodies of all humans and
animals. We normally take in between 70 and 88 micrograms of silver a day, half of that amount
from our diet. Humans have efficient methods of dealing with that intake, however. Over 99 percent
is readily excreted from the body.
Unlike other metals such as lead and mercury, silver is not toxic to humans and is not known to
cause cancer, reproductive or neurological damage, or other chronic adverse effects.
Occasionally, sensitive individuals suffer allergic reactions ² contact dermatitis or eye irritation ²
after exposure to powdered silver, silver solutions or dental fillings. Ingesting silver compounds,
such as in medicines, can sometimes irritate the stomach.
In its pure metal form or in ores, silver does not dissolve and is not considered an environmental
risk. But high doses of certain compounds of silver have been found to highly toxic to aquatic life
forms, such as fish.
Scientists once believed that metals that existed as free ions were most likely to pose a risk to living
things, since these forms tend to react more readily with biological molecules. Studies of fish and
83
zooplankton exposed to high doses of silver nitrate (a form of the metal containing large quantities
of free ions) confirmed that silver in this form is indeed highly toxic to aquatic creatures. This ionic
form of silver interferes with an enzyme (sodium/potassium ATPase) that regulates the levels of
potassium and sodium in fish. Disturbing the sodium/potassium equilibrium has fatal effects: Fish
quickly lose ions from their blood, water seeps into their body tissues, and they die from
cardiovascular collapse. Similar effects were found in tiny aquatic animals called zooplankton.
Though these effects are dramatic, this ionic form of silver is rarely found outside a laboratory.
Scientists now suspect that lower doses of silver compounds over longer periods of time may have
more subtle but equally worrisome effects on fish and other aquatic organisms ² affecting the
reproductive system in sensitive species. Researchers are investigating the effects of chronic silver
exposure on aquatic life.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that the concentration of silver in public
drinking water supplies not exceed one milligram per liter of water ² one part per million ²
because of the skin discoloration that may occur from chronic silver exposure. The agency also
requires that spills or accidental releases of 1,000 pounds or more of silver be reported.
"!;)Nickel released in industrial waste-water ends up in soil or sediment where it strongly

attaches to particles containing iron or manganese. By drinking water that contains small amounts
of nickel,people can be exposed to nickel. People who drank water containing high amounts of
nickel had stomach ache and suffered adverse effects to their blood and kidneys.
Damage to the lung and nasal cavity has been observed in rats and mice breathing nickel
compounds. Eating or drinking large amounts of nickel has caused lung disease in dogs and rats and
has affected the stomach, blood, liver, kidneys, and immune system in rats and mice, as well as
their reproduction and development.
Nickel does not appear to accumulate in fish or in other animals used as food.
Iron is the fourth most abundant, by weight, of the elements that make up the earth¶s crust.
Common in many rocks, it is an important component of many soils, especially clay soils where it
84
is usually a major constituent. The dissolved iron concentration in Iowa¶s groundwater can range
from less than 1 mg/l up to 20 mg/l (USGS Groundwater Monitoring Data).
The ferrous, or bivalent (Fe++), and the ferric, or trivalent (Fe+++) ions, are the primary forms of
concern in the aquatic environment, although other forms may be in organic and inorganic
wastewater streams. The ferrous (Fe++) form can persist in waters void of dissolved oxygen and
originates usually from groundwater or mines when these are pumped or drained. For practical
purposes, the ferric (Fe+++) form is insoluble.
Iron is an objectionable constituent in water supplies for either domestic or industrial use. Iron can
affect the taste of beverages and can stain laundered clothes and plumbing fixtures. The EPA red
book (1976) recommended a criterion of 0.3 mg/l for domestic water supply uses for iron.
At certain concentrations, iron can also be toxic to aquatic life. The EPA red book (1976)
recommended a criterion of 1.0 mg/l for freshwater aquatic life protection.
Large amounts of ingested iron can cause excessive levels of iron in the blood. High blood levels of
free ferrous iron react with peroxides to produce free radicals, which are highly reactive and can
damage DNA, proteins, lipids, and other cellular components. Thus, iron toxicity occurs when there
is free iron in the cell, which generally occurs when iron levels exceed the capacity of transferring
to bind the iron. Damage to the cells of the gastrointestinal tract can also prevent them from
regulating iron absorption leading to further increases in blood levels. Iron typically damages cells
in the heart, liver and elsewhere, which can cause significant adverse effects, including coma,
metabolic acidosis, shock, liver failure, coagulopathy, adult respiratory distress syndrome, long-
term organ damage, and even death. Humans experience iron toxicity above 20 milligrams of iron
for every kilogram of mass, and 60 milligrams per kilogram is considered a lethal dose.
Overconsumption of iron, often the result of children eating large quantities of ferrous sulfate
tablets intended for adult consumption, is one of the most common toxicological causes of death in
children under six. The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) lists the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL)
for adults as 45 mg/day. For children under fourteen years old the UL is 40 mg/day.

85
"!
rr
Although zinc is an essential requirement for good health, excess zinc can be harmful. Excessive
absorption of zinc suppresses copper and iron absorption. The free zinc ion in solution is highly
toxic to plants, invertebrates, and even vertebrate fish. The Free Ion Activity Model is well-
established in the literature, and shows that just micromolar amounts of the free ion kills some
organisms. A recent example showed 6 micromolar killing 93% of all v in water.
The free zinc ion is a powerful Lewis acid up to the point of being corrosive. Stomach acid contains
hydrochloric acid, in which metallic zinc dissolves readily to give corrosive zinc chloride.
Swallowing a post-1982 American one cent piece (97.5% zinc) can cause damage to the stomach
lining due to the high solubility of the zinc ion in the acidic stomach.
There is evidence of induced copper deficiency at low intakes of 100±300 mg Zn/day; a recent trial
had higher hospitalizations for urinary complications compared to placebo among elderly men
taking 80 mg/day. The USDA RDA is 15 mg Zn/day. Even lower levels, closer to the RDA, may
interfere with the utilization of copper and iron or adversely affect cholesterol. Levels of zinc in
excess of 500 ppm in soil interfere with the ability of plants to absorb other essential metals, such as
iron and manganese. There is also a condition called the zinc shakes or "zinc chills" that can be
induced by the inhalation of freshly formed zinc oxide formed during the welding of galvanized
materials.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stated that zinc damages nerve receptors in the
nose, which can cause anosmia. Reports of anosmia were also observed in the 1930s when zinc
preparations were used in a failed attempt to prevent polio infections. On June 16, 2009, the FDA
said that consumers should stop using zinc-based intranasal cold products and ordered their removal
from store shelves. The FDA said the loss of smell can be life-threatening because people with
impaired smell cannot detect leaking gas or smoke and cannot tell if food has spoiled before they
eat it. Recent research suggests that the topical antimicrobial zinc pyrithione is a potent heat shock
response inducer that may impair genomic integrity with induction of PARP-dependent energy
crisis in cultured human keratinocytes and melanocytes.
86
rr
Zinc is highly toxic in parrots and poisoning can often be fatal. The consumption of fruit juices
stored in galvanized cans has resulted in mass parrot poisonings with zinc.
%)
Exposure to cobalt can occur through oral or dermal(skin) routes.Mammals,including humans,are

exposed to natural sources of cobalt like water.Taking excessive amounts of cobalt may result to ±
i) Heart diseases,

ii) Weak Reproductive systems,
iii) Decrease in red blood cells.

Lead poisoning has been a significant public health problem for centuries since lead is a cumulative
poison. Exposure to lead and lead compounds can be toxic to humans and wildlife. Potential effects
in humans are abdominal cramps, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, constipation,
anemia, tiredness, nerve damage, vomiting, convulsions, anorexia, and brain damage. Wildlife and
waterfowl are also frequently poisoned through the ingestion of lead and lead shot. Toxic effects
occur to the central nervous system and resulting long-term neurobehavioral and cognitive deficits
occur even with mildly elevated blood lead levels.
: r ! ! r !

The quality of water is of vital concern for mankind since it is directly linked with human welfare.
Due to the recent industrial revolution and developments in the fields of science and technology, a
large number of chemicals compound has been introduced into the environment. f these textile
industries play a vital role because they use and discharge huge amount of water.
87
By definition, water pollution is a state of deviation from the pure condition, whereby its normal
function and properties are affected. Water pollution disturb the normal uses of water for public
water supply such as-
K Recreation and aesthetics.

K Fish, other aquatic life and wild life.
K Agriculture.
K Industry etc.

: r ! ! r
Dissolve oxygen is an essential requirement of aquatic life, i.e. plant and animal population in any
water body. The optimum dissolve oxygen in natural water is 4-6 ppm. Industrial wastes from
textile industries undergo bacterial activity in the presence of dissolve oxygen, the net result being
the de-oxygenating process and quick depletion of dissolve oxygen.
Reaction is as follows:
C+O2 = CO2
When the water dissolve oxygen is depleted, the water is said to become anaerobic. Often, however,
the dissolve oxygen does not drop to zero and the water recovers without anaerobiosis.

: r ! !

" r!
Due to the water pollution quality of water is decreased. When the rate of oxygen overwhelms the
rate of water supply, the water may become anaerobic. An aerobic stream has bubbling gas. The gas
is formed because oxygen is no longer available to act as hydrogen acceptor and ammonia,
hydrogen sulfide and other gases are formed. In addition, the odor of hydrogen sulfide will
advertise the anaerobic condition for some distance, the water is usually black or dark and fungus
grows.
The quality of water depends on the following parameters :
"7 pH,
88
""7 BOD,
"""7 COD,
"27 TDS,
27 TSS,
2"7 Temperature etc.
"7 ((!,
pH is a measure of the amount of free hydrogen ions in water. Specifically, pH is the approximate
value of the negative logarithm of the molar concentration of hydrogen ions.
pH = -log[H+]
Because pH is measured on a logarithmic scale, an increase of one unit indicates an increase of ten
times the amount of hydrogen ions. A pH of 7 is considered to be neutral.
Acidity increases as pH values decrease, and alkalinity increases as pH values increase.Most natural
waters are buffered by a carbon-dioxide-bicarbonate system, since the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere serves as a source of carbonic acid.
H2CO2 --> HCO3 + H+ pK ~ 7.5
This reaction tends to keep pH of most waters around 7 - 7.5, unless large amounts of acid or base
are added to the water. Most streams draining coniferous woodlands tend to be slightly acidic (6.8
to 6.5) due to organic acids produced by the decaying of organic matter. Natural waters in the
Piedmont of Georgia also receive acidity from the soils. In waters with high algal concentrations,
pH varies diurnally, reaching values as high as 10 during the day when algae are using carbon
dioxide in photosynthesis. pH drops during the night when the algae respire and produce carbon
dioxide.
The pH of water affects the solubility of many toxic and nutritive chemicals; therefore,the
availability of these substances to aquatic organisms is affected. As acidity increases due to
industrial wastewater , most metals become more water soluble and more toxic. Toxicity of
cyanides and sulfides also increases with a decrease in pH (increase in acidity). Ammonia, however,
becomes more toxic with only a slight increase in pH.
Alkalinity is the capacity to neutralize acids, and the alkalinity of natural water is derived
principally from the salts of weak acids. Hydroxide, carbonates, and bicarbonates are the dominant
89
source of natural alkalinity. Reactions of carbon dioxide with calcium /magnesium carbonate in the
soil creates considerable amounts of bicarbonates in the soil.
Organic acids such as humic acid also form salts that increase alkalinity. Alkalinity itself has little
public health significance, although highly alkaline waters are unpalatable and can cause
gastrointestinal discomfort.
""7 ((!
Natural organic detritus and organic waste from waste water treatment plants, failing septic
systems, and agricultural and urban runoff, acts as a food source for water-borne bacteria. Bacteria
decompose these organic materials using dissolved oxygen, thus reducing the DO present for fish.
Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is a measure of the amount of oxygen that bacteria will
consume while decomposing organic matter under aerobic conditions. Biochemical oxygen
demand is determined by incubating a sealed sample of water for five days and measuring the loss
of oxygen from the beginning to the end of the test. Samples often must be diluted prior to
incubation or the bacteria will deplete all of the oxygen in the bottle before the test is complete.
If effluent with high BOD levels is discharged into a stream or river, it will accelerate bacterial
growth in the river and consume the oxygen levels in the river. The oxygen may diminish to levels
that are lethal for most fish and many aquatic insects. As the river re-aerates due to atmospheric
mixing and as algal photosynthesis adds oxygen to the water, the oxygen levels will slowly
increase downstream. The drop and rise in DO levels downstream from a source of BOD is called
the .
The main focus of wastewater treatment plants is to reduce the BOD in the effluent discharged to
natural waters as more value of BOD means more amount of bacteria will decompose high amount
of dissolved oxygen,thus reducing high amount of DO present for fish without which fishes can¶t
exist . Wastewater treatment plants are designed to function as bacteria farms, where bacteria are
fed oxygen and organic waste. The excess bacteria grown in the system are removed as sludge, and
this ³solid´ waste is then disposed of on land.

"""7 ((!
Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is the same as BOD,the only difference is COD does not
differentiate between biologically available and inert organic matter, and it is a measure of the total
90
quantity of oxygen required to oxidize all organic material into carbon dioxide and water.Industrial
wastewater increases COD which means more amount of bacteria will decompose high amount of
dissolved oxygen,thus reducing high amount of DO present for fish without which fishes can¶t exist
.
"27 ((!
All natural waters contain some dissolved solids due to the dissolution and weathering of rock and
soil. Dissolved solids are determined by evaporating a known volume of water and weighing the
residue. Some but not the entire dissolved solids act as conductors and contribute to conductance.
Industrial Wastewaters with high total dissolved solids (TDS) are unpalatable and potentially
unhealthy. Water treatment plants use flocculants to aggregate suspended and dissolved solids into
particles large enough to settle out of the water column in settling tanks. A flocculent is a chemical
that uses double-layer kinetics to attract charged particles.

27 ((! %""3
Sediment enters streams via upland soil erosion, bank erosion, and land sliding.Sediment is a
natural component of streams, but excessive sediment can be carried into streams and rivers from
erosion of unstable streambanks, construction sites, agricultural activities, and urban runoff.
Sediment moves downstream in a river in two forms: v and . v
includes the particles in suspension in the water column. The red-brown color of Georgia Piedmont
streams is due to clay and colloid particles in suspension. refers to the sediment pushed
along the bottom of the channel. Coarser substrate such as sand and gravel tends to move as bed
load, not suspended load.
Sediment is usually measured as a concentration of total suspended solids (TSS), which is the dry
weight after filtering a water sample, expressed in mg per liter. To determine a suspended sediment
load (mass/time), the TSS concentration must be multiplied by the flow rate (volume/time).
°
is another indicator of the amount of matter suspended in water; it measures the amount
of light that is scattered or absorbed.
Suspended silt and clay, organic matter, and plankton can contribute to turbidity. Photoelectric
turbidimeters measure turbidity in nephelometric turbidity units (NTUs). Turbidity units are
supposed to correspond to TSS concentrations, but this correlation is only approximate.
Turbidity in a stream fluctuate before, during and after stormflow.
91
The new general NPDES stormwater permit for constructions sites requires that the difference in
turbidity not exceed 25 NTU downstream from a construction site compared to upstream. If this
criterion is exceeded and if Best Management Practices (BMPs) are not properly designed, installed
or maintained, then the permittee is subject to fines and third party lawsuits .
Turbidities of 10 NTU or less represent very clear waters; 50 NTU is cloudy; and 100-500 or
greater is very cloudy to muddy. Some fish species may become stressed at prolonged exposures of
25 NTUs or greater. Furthermore, Barnes (1998) recommended that to maintain native fish
populations in Georgia Piedmont Rivers and streams, that random monthly values should never
exceed 100 NTU; that no more than 5 percent of the samples should exceed 50 NTU; and no more
than 20% should exceed 25 NTU.
Similarly, average TSS concentrations in the range of 25-80 mg/L represent moderate water quality.
An average concentration of 25 mg/L has been suggested as an indicator of unimpaired stream
water quality (Holbeck-Pelham and Rasmussen, 1997). Some states use 50 mg/L as a screening
level for potential impairment to waterbodies.
Fine sediment deposited on the streambed can fill gravel spaces, eliminating spawning habitat for
some fish species and also eliminating habitat for many invertebrate species.
Turbidity and or TSS can reduce light penetration, decreasing algal growth, and low algal
productivity can reduce the productivity of aquatic invertebrates, a food source of many fish. High
turbidity levels affect fish feeding and growth; the ability of salmonids to find and capture food is
impaired at turbidities from 25 to 70 NTU. Gill function in some fish may also be impaired after 5
to 10 days of exposure to a turbidity level of 25 NTU.
Turbidities of less than 10 describe very clear waters. Waters with turbidity in excess of 50 are quite
cloudy, and waters with turbidities exceeding 500 are downright muddy.
Large bed loads can also reduce or eliminate pool habitat essential to low-flow and summer
survival of fish. Essentially, channels with high bed loads tend to feature shallower water and a
larger wetted perimeter. Channel bed topography as well as the size distribution of sediments on the
bottom of the channel (referred to as substrate) are vital factors for the productivity of many fish
species. Pools provide resting areas for fish, protection from terrestrial and avian predators, and
sometimes provide cooler water, which lowers metabolic needs. Areas of cool water in streams and
lakes are called thermal refugia.
92
2"7 ((!+,

Metabolic rate and the reproductive activities of aquatic life are controlled by water temperature.
Metabolic activity increases with a rise in temperature, thus increasing a fish¶s demand for oxygen;
however; an increase in stream temperature also causes a decrease in DO, limiting the amount of
oxygen available to these aquatic organisms.
With a limited amount of DO available, the fish in this system will become stressed. A rise in
temperature can also provide conditions for the growth of disease-causing organisms.
Water temperature varies with season, elevation, geographic location, and climatic conditions and is
influenced by stream flow, streamside vegetation, groundwater inputs, and water effluent from
industrial activities. Water temperatures rise when streamside vegetation is removed. When entire
forest canopies were removed, temperatures in Pacific Northwest streams increased up to 8o C
above the previous highest temperature.
Water temperature also increases when warm water is discharged into streams from industries.

..((!/("/,!"(*

The outward evidence of an anaerobic stream is accompanied by adverse effects on aquatic life.
Types and number of species change drastically downstream from the pollution discharge point.
Increased turbidity, settled solid matter, and low dissolved oxygen all contribute to a decrease in
fish life.

.0((!,/3/"(1 "!,)

The effluents released from textile industry have a mixture of chemicals used in the digestion of
raw materials, cellulose fibers, and dissolve lignin. These chemicals like pentachlorophenol and
sodium pentachlorophenate as well as methyl macaptan are brownish in color and lower the
photosynthetic rate of aquatic communities by hindering sunlight penetration into the water column.
.&((!!,
93

The untreated textile industries wastes have adverse effects on crop. Soluble salts, needed by the
industries, are responsible for cost damage. They cause crop loss, soil loss, metallic corrosion and
lead to costly cleansing activities.
Chen et al (1991) showed that the rice seed germination rate and the amount Chlorophyll decrease
remarkably with increasing Pb concentration.

: # r $ r
Soil is a natural resource and major part of the environment. People depend on soil for their basic
needs but soiled environment are under tremendous pressure due to industrial expansion. Soil gets
enormous quantities of wastes products each year which mainly include unlimited varieties of
liquid industrial wastes. The wastes are the potential source of soil pollution through their direct or
indirect disposal on the land. The residual release from the plant infiltrate into the soil and later
back to the surface as a result of irrigation. The chemical and metallic pollutant pore their hazardous
effects in soil creating disastrous effects on living organism. Industrial wastes contain heavy metals
which have potential toxicity and may be able to process of soil formation. It reduces the capacity
of the forest to maintain fertility of the soil. These act phytotoxic even a small quantity
Of all the industries of Bangladesh, the Textile industry appears to be the one of the major source of
pollution for agriculture soil, with Naraynjanj being most affected.

Studies on the properties of soil,collected from the textile area revealed that soluble salts from
textile effluents enhanced the soil EC that adversely affect the seedling establishment. Textile
industry has been found to discharge significant amounts of Cr,Cu, Cd, Zn, Mn, Fe and Pb . High
levels of Cr, Zn, Mn, Cu and Pb was observed in the main waste disposal point, which exceeded
toxic level range in the soils. Grass accumulated higher amount of Chromium that of paddy and
water hyacinth in these areas and exceed the allowable limit.

94

.-((!"),/3"!),,"

Soil physical properties such as soil structure, texture, porosity, particle density, water holding
capacity, soil temperature are seriously affected by Textile industries wastes. The destruction of soil
structure results
K Decrease in water holding capacity.
K Decrease in the infiltration capacity.
K Decrease in aeration.
K Decrease in the temperature of the soil.
Suspended solid can blanket the soil, thereby interfering with the soil moisture. As a result of these
agriculture sector of our country gives a big tool due to textile industry.
.-$((!")!/+"!),,"

Soil chemical properties such as pH, decomposition of organic matter, and availability of plant
nutrients are adversely affected by textile industries wastes. Textile industries activity emits
arsenic and So2.These makes the soil very acidic. The low pH affects the decomposition of organic
matter, availability of plant nutrient, microbial activity etc.
Organic matter cans influence the solubility of heavy metals in soil in different ways. It can
increase the solubility of heavy metals by forming soluble organic complexes, but on the other
hand the ability of organic matter immobilize heavy metals has also been reported. Colloidal
organic matter has a strong affinity to the heavy metals cations thereby replacing major plant
nutrients and then be precipitated or be leached from the soil solution. Textile industrial wastes
containing several heavy metals such as Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Zn, and As etc can accumulate the
soil. Their continuous use for irrigation of agricultural land may result in metal accumulation on
the surface soil (Gupta et al., 1988).
.-'((!")%")"!),,"
95

Micro-organisms are the component of the soil, which decompose the organic matter of the soil.
Textile industries wastes containing metallic contaminants (e.g., Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Zn, and As
etc.) destroy bacteria and beneficial micro-organisms of the soil. Heavy metals tend to precipitate
phosphate compounds and catalyze their decomposition. These metals are considered to be
indestructible poisons and their accumulation in the soil for a long period may be highly fatal to
living organisms. High concentration of heavy metals with a low pH in the contaminated soil
makes it unfavorable for microbial activities. Many beneficial micro-organisms become inactive in
acidic condition. As a result nitrifying, nitrogen fixing and other bacteria are decreased which are
beneficial for soil fertility. Again certain diseases causing organism prevail in acid conditions,
which adversely affect the fertility of the soil.

96
0 ")""!/(/" 3,+"3+
Increasing industrialisation and lack of waste treatment is leading to a major water pollution problem
in many parts of Bangladesh, impacting on aquatic ecosystems and the population who depend on
them for their livelihood activities. However, Bangladesh has a well developed set of environmental
policies, Acts and Rules that deal with industrial pollution of water, soil and air.
Responsibility for control and abatement of water pollution falls to the Department of
Environment(DOE) within the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF). Broadly, DOE are
mandated to set and enforce environmental regulations for all forms of pollution and media (air,
water and soil).Specifically in relation to water pollution, DOE are responsible for: pollution
control; setting water quality standards (WQS) for water use and discharge; defining environmental
impact assessment(EIA) procedures; issuing environmental clearance permits; and declaring and
protecting degraded ecosystems (UNEP, 2001).
The Ministry of Water Resources through several of its agencies, particularly the Water Resources
Planning Organization (WARPO) and the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), are
responsible for all other forms of water management in Bangladesh. The BWDB is principally
responsible for implementation, operation and maintenance of water related projects, whilst
WARPO is mandated to advise on policy, planning and regulation of water resources.
The policies and laws through which the BWDB, WARPO and DOE operate include: the National
Water Policy; the National Environment Policy and Rules; and the Environmental Conservation
Act. There are more than 200 laws aimed at addressing environmental issues in the country.
In the history of environmental policy and legislation of Bangladesh,different legislations have been
passed at different times.Name of some important legislations are stated below:
1. Environmental Pollution Control Ordinance, 1977
2. National Environmental Policy, 1992,
3. National Environmental Management Plan, 1995,
4. Environment Conservation Rules, 1997,
5. The Environmental Court Act 2000,
6The Environmental Court Act(Amended) 2002,
7. The EIA Guidelines for Industry
97
Although having dispute over the title, the EIA Guidelines for Industries cover significant water
sector interventions,including flood control embankments, polder and dykes and roads and bridges.
All these water sector interventions for under the µRed¶ category of industrial units. These require,
in theory, for proposed project construction, re-construction and extension.
In general the policies and legislation in place to protect water from industrial and other effluent is
well constructed and comprehensive. The Environmental Conservation Act and Environmental
Conservation Rules, and National Water Policy have adequate clauses relating to industrial
pollution. This includes water quality protection, effluent discharge monitoring, zoning regulations
for new industries and strengthening of the regulatory system for agrochemical pollution
control(UNEP, 2001). The two exceptions to this are concerns over the failure to establish the
Wetland Policy, which after several years has still not been put before parliament, and the apparent
overlap in mandates of the MoEF and WARPO and NWRC in developing and implementing
policies regarding water resources development and management. However, such concerns are
insignificant in comparison to those in relation to the institutional capacity and capability to enforce
them. There are few action programmes and a lack of skills and expertise to take appropriate actions
to ensure that both government and private sector developments properly address environmental
concerns. With few exceptions there is still a lack of institutional awareness let alone capabilities to
address policy goals and objectives. Through the Bangladesh Environment Management Program
(BEMP) and the Sustainable Environmental Management Program(SEMP), the DOE is currently
working towards improved water quality monitoring, and estimation of pollution loads in rivers and
watercourses, as well as trying to strengthen the institutional arrangements through which these will
occur. There have also been initiatives such as the development of Guidelines for EIA applicable to
several sectors, including flood control and drainage. However, there are few initiatives that aim to
tackle the serious problem of water resource degradation that already exists in Bangladesh. The
DOE have no guidelines on clean-up and no time bound targets. The absolute numbers of polluting
industries that need to be dealt with are conservatively estimated to be 1000 in Dhaka and 600 in
Chittagong (UNEP, 2001). There are no estimates outside these two large cities. Moreover, it is
generally accepted that no realistic strengthening or expansion of the DoE in the future will be able
to cope with all the problems. It is viewed that there is no real expectation that DOE could cope
with even a fraction of the problems.
98
The only clean-up strategy that is likely to have any impact on the current dire situation is one
based on mobilization of other organizations and the general public including public-private
partnerships. What the initial findings of this research suggest is that such an approach could draw
heavily on the economic argument for change ± businesses are losing money due to inefficient
practices, practices that can be improved at little or no cost. It is therefore in the interests of all that
the current situation improves.

On the next page,following informations are listed on tables :
*Classification of Industrial Units and Projects Based on Impact and Location( Table 1)

*Waste Quality Standards for Discharge Point of Industrial Units and Projects( Table 2)
*Discharge quality standards for Integrated Textile Mill and Large Processing UnitTable 3)

99
!"#

Category Impact Examples of industries Application requirements
Green Least TV, radio & watch General information on the industrial unit
manufacture,book binding, rope or project;
and mat production, tea Description of the manufactured product
packing,candle, motorcycle and toy and
assembly, cork product, laundry raw materials; and
(except washing) A ³No Objection Certificate´ from the
local authority.
Amber A Livestock (below specified In addition to the above:

numbers), grinding mills, saw mill, A process flow diagram;
cinema, dry cleaning,printing press, Layout plan showing an effluent treatment
industrial machinery, brass/bronze plant (ETP);
souvenir manufacture, plastic and Waste discharge arrangements;
rubber goods (not PVC) Outline of relocation or rehabilitation
plant(where applicable); and
Other necessary information (where
applicable).
Amber B PVC products, synthetic fibre, In addition to the above :

edible oil, brick, hotel, foundry, Planned industrial unit or project must
jute mill, plastic product, potable submit a Feasibility Report and an Initial
water and soft drinks,galvanising, Environmental Examination (IEE) Report,
animal feed, ink,stone crushing, including Process Flow Diagram, Layout
fish and meat processing, Plan,showing ETP and diagram of ETP;
pathology, water treatment plant, Existing industrial unit or project must
soap, tea processing, leather goods submit an Environmental Management Plan
manufacture, furniture, livestock (EMP) Report including Process Flow
(over specified numbers) Diagram,Layout Plan, showing ETP and
diagram of ETP and information on its
function.
Pollution Effect Abatement Plan along
with Emergency Plan for adverse
environmental impact.
Red Leather producing (3), In addition to the above:

formaldehyde, urea and TSP The IEE Report must include an
fertilizer, mineral projects, oil Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
refinery, chemicals, paper and based on program outline previously
pulp, sugar, distillery, (%"! approved by the DOE including Layout
3"and chemical treatment, Plan and Process Flow Time Frame
iron and steel, acids, plastic raw Diagram.
materials,electroplating,industrial
estate, sewage treatment
Most

100
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101
In case of Bangladesh,the ready-made garment sector has become one of the largest manufacturing
sectors in Bangladesh with approximately 4490 apparel manufacturing units registered under the
Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA) in 2008 [1]. The growth
in this sector, and other small and medium scale enterprises, undoubtedly has a positive effect on
national economic development but there are also negative implications. In particular, the large
volumes of water consumed and the water pollution generated through the dyeing process can have
a severe impact on the local environment. Khan et al. [2] reported that a semi-automated composite
textile industry of 10 tons of capacity produces 1250 m3 of effluent each day, which contains an
assortment of chemicals including salts, dyes and bleaches.The rapid but unplanned growth of
industrial clusters,with several factories discharging large amounts of untreated or poorly treated
wastewater, has led to serious localized water pollution. As a result, water bodies and agricultural
land are displaying reduced productivity and the biological diversity of these ecosystems is
threatened. The result is not only environmental degradation but also a reduction in the nutrition
and incomes of families that traditionally depended on these resources; and they are not always the
same people who get benefit from the jobs created by the factories.
One solution is to ensure that all the effluent is properly treated before it is discharged. The
Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act (1995) and Rules(1997) make provision for this,
categorizing factories according to their ability to pollute and stating the measures that must be
taken to address this, including treatment. Under the 1997 Rules fabric dyeing and chemical
processing industries are categorized as³Red industries´, which is the highest category in the Rules
and for which an effluent treatment plant (ETP) is mandatory. Under these Rules factories must
treat as well as monitor the quality of their wastewater and stay within national discharge quality
standards (Table 1) :
102
Table 1: Discharge quality standards for classified industries composite textile plants

+ "+"?+A7

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* BOD limit of 150 mg/L implies only with physico-chemical processing
** No official standard for COD of textile effluent but the general standard for discharge to inland
surface water is 200 mg/L
In Bangladesh,there can also be two types of discharge standard values of the industry permit
systems.One type is for inland river and another is for irrigation land. Discharge standards (into
inland river & into irrigation land) of the industry permit systems for a textile industry according to
the EIA guidelines compiled by DOE(Department of Environment) is given below :
1 )"3" 2) ("!/""H

,+ )"2 )("""
01 pH 6-9 6-9
02 BOD mg/L,5days < 50.0 I100
03 COD mg/L,day < 200.0 < 400
04 TSS mg/L < 150.0 < 200.0
05 TDS mg/L < 2100 < 2100
06 Oil & grease mg/L < 10 < 10
07 Colour Co-pt unit < 150 < 150
08 Temperature ÛC < 30ÛC < 30ÛC

103
p("

Pollution control issues are relatively recent in Bangladesh. With few exceptions, the industries are
not equipped with pollution control systems. With the advent of industrialization, untreated wastes
and highly toxic effluents, especially of heavy metals and organic pollutants are discharged directly
into the natural systems at random that impairs the quality of water, soil and sediments (DoE,
1992).
Treatment of industrial waste effluent has so far been considered a low priority, because policy
planners had a feeling of complacency that industrial pollution is still at a very low level. Due to
lack of awareness as well as the absence of strong punitive actions, the practice of circulating waste
and effluent into water bodies including ponds, canals, creeks and rivers still remains widespread.
These waste and effluents contain heavy metals, toxic substance and in the some case, high amount
of nitrate and ammonia nitrogen. They pollute natural water system as well as groundwater. They,
thereby create serious environmental hazards, endanger human health and cause problems to
aquatic lives. Some of heavy metals and phytotoxic and some are toxic to both plants and animals
through their entry into the water-soil-plant-food system. The serious public health hazards they
create are to some extent minimized as the waste and effluents are mostly fleshed out into the sea
during the rainy season. But excessive localized pollution is already threatening the sustainability of
the resource base and having effects on the health if people, most of who are affected or unaware or
hardly have any other choices. (Naruzzaman M 1995; Ullah et al., 1995; Bashar MA 1999; Islam et
al., july,2002; Nuruzzaman et al., 1998; Roads et al., 1989; Page et al., 1981; Rahman, M.A. 1997).
Within the Earth Summit in Rio and the Kyoto Protocol in Japan, the 1990s have been a significant
decade in reshaping conventional development thinking into sustainable development. This new
trend guides us to clean up existing industries and develop new one with minimum environmental
impacts. In this process, development of recycling systems, waste exchange and industrial ecology
will replace the linear industrial processes with a more circulatory structure. (EDA. 1990).
By having a small industrial base Bangladesh is in an advantageous position for getting a head start
in developing clean and sustainable industries. The wise approach is to learn from the mistakes of
the already industrialized countries and take proactive measures in planning and managing the
104
industrial sector. (Faisal et al., 2000; Gain, P. (Ed.). 1998; De, A. K. 1993; Haq, S.A. 1989;
Chowdhury N., 1989; Nakos,G. 1983; Saxena, M.M.1990; Stemberg et al., 1994).
According to the The Ministry of Environment and Forest (1997), Government of Bangladesh,
dumping of soil and liquid wastes from various Industries is causing serious environmental
degradation in Bangladesh. These effluents contain 10 to 100 times the allowable levels of
pollutants permissible for human health. They pollute our soils as well as groundwater. Once the
ground water is polluted, it is virtually impossible to purity it even in highly technically advanced
industrial countries and thereby endangering human health, aquatic lives and crop production. The
effluents may contain heavy metal like Ni, Pb, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Zn or Fe. Some of these are toxic to
plants and some are toxic to both plants and animals (Page °., 1981; Baath, 1989; Roads °.,
1989; Gerzabek and Ullah, 1990; Ullah °., 1995).
Fig : Industrial effluent from a textile dyeing industry.
According to officials of the Department of Environment (DoE), dumping of solid and liquid waste
of various industries is not only poisoning the water but also causing hindrance to movement of
river vessels by making the rivers too shallow. The people living surrounding these rivers are
leading a subhuman life in the stench of the chemical waste and poisons in river water. Many
people are suffering from various water-borne and skin diseases after using the septic water of these
rivers. Fishes are dying off and adjoining croplands are losing fertility alarmingly as water
pollution causes both land and air pollution.
The sequences of industrial pollution cover three inter linked events :

105
emission and entry of pollutants into physical environment ĺ entry and fate of pollutants in
biological environment and contamination of biological chain ĺ toxic effects and impact upon
human (Dara, 1997).
Textile industry waste waters and the sludge contain a variety of heavy metals, which can
contaminant soils as well as surface and ground water sources when discharged on land or water
body. Pollution of natural waters, soils and vegetation with waste effluents arising from textile
industries has become a serious problem in Bangladesh, as textile industries growth and
development have been on a very large scale and they consume large volumes of water and
chemicals for wet processing of textiles.

r !
Water is the most vital element among the natural resources, and is crucial for the survival of all
living organisms including human, food production, and economic development. Today, nearly 40
percent of the world¶s food supply is grown under irrigation, and a wide variety of industrial
processes depend on water (BCAS, 2000). Moreover, in Bangladesh, the environment, economic
growth, and developments are all highly influenced by the quality and quantity of surface and
groundwater. Seasonal availability of surface and groundwater is highly responsive to the monsoon
climate and physiography of the country. In terms of quality, the surface water of the country is
vulnerable to pollution from untreated industrial effluents and municipal wastewater, runoff from
chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and oil and lube spillage in the coastal area from the operation of
sea and river ports. Water quality also depends on effluent types and discharge quantity from
different type of industries, types of agrochemicals used in agriculture, and seasonal water flow and
dilution capability by the river system (DHV, 1998).
Originating as the Yarlung Zangbo Jiang in China's Xizang Autonomous Region (Tibet) and
flowing through India's state of Arunachal Pradesh, where it becomes known as the Brahmaputra, it
receives waters from five major tributaries that total some 740 kilometers in length. At the point
where the Brahmaputra meets the river Tista in Bangladesh, it becomes known as the Jamuna. This
mighty network of four river systems flowing through the Bangladesh Plain drains an area of some
1.5 million square kilometers. The numerous channels of the Padma-Meghna, its distributaries, and
106
smaller parallel rivers that flow into the Bay of Bengal are referred to as the mouths of the Ganges.
The rivers of Bangladesh mark both the physiography of the nation and the life of the people. About
700 in number, these rivers generally flow to the south. The rivers also drain excess monsoon
rainfall into the Bay of Bengal. Thus, the great river system is at the same time the country's
principal resource and its greatest hazard (U.S. Library of Congress, 2002).
r $ % rr

The river water quality is an important concern to a nation, because surface water used for
agricultural, industrial and drinking purposes and as well as aquatic ecosystems. The aquatic
environment for fish and aquatic biodiversity can be affected from harmful substances in the water
and ultimately a threat to food chain contamination. A variation of inland surface water quality is
noticed due to seasonal rainfall variation and river water flow, operation of industrial units,
municipal wastewater and use of agrochemicals. ³Water quality´ is a term used here to express the
suitability of water to sustain various uses or processes. Any particular use will have certain
requirements for the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of water. Consequently, a
range of variables, which limit water use, can define water quality. Quantity and quality demands of
different users will not always be compatible, and the activities of one user may restrict the
activities of another, either by demanding water of a quality outside the range required by the other
user or by lowering quality during use of the water (Meybeck etal, 1996).
Overall, inland surface water quality in the monsoon season is within tolerable limit with respect to
the standard set by the Department of Environment (DoE) given in table 1. However, quality
deteriorates in the dry season. The salinity intrusions in the Southwest region and pollution
problems in industrial areas are significant. River water quality around Dhaka is so poor that water
from the surrounding rivers can no longer be considered as a source of water supply for human
consumption (DoE, 2001). Mainly the surface water of the country is vulnerable to pollution from
untreated industrial effluents and municipal wastewater, runoff from agro-chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, and oil and lube spillage from the operation of sea and river ports.

107
Table-1: standard limits for drinking water

) + "
1. Aluminum mg/L 0.2
2. Ammonia (NH3) ,, 0.5
3. Arsenic ,, 0.05
6. BOD520°C ,, 0.2
7. Boron ,, 1.0
8. Cadmium ,, 0.005
9. Calcium ,, 75
10. Chloride ,, 150 ± 600*
16. Chromium (total) ,, 0.05
17. COD ,, 4
20. Color Hazen 15
21. Copper mg/L 1
24. DO ,, 6
26. Hardness (as CaCO3) ,, 200 ± 500
27. Iron ,, 0.3 ± 1.0
28. Kjeldhl Nitrogen (total) ,, 1
29. Lead ,, 0.05
30. Magnesium ,, 30 ± 35
31. Manganese ,, 0.1
34. Nitrate ,, 10
36. Odour ,, Odourless
38. pH ,, 6.5 ± 8.5
40. Phosphate ,, 6
41. Phosphorus ,, 0
42. Potassium ,, 12
47. Sodium ,, 200
48. Suspended particulate matters ,, 10
50. Sulfate ,, 400
51. Total dissolved solids ,, 1000
52. Temperature °C 20-30
55. Zinc mg/L 5
Source: (DoE, 1997).
In Bangladesh, industrial units are mostly located along the banks of the rivers. There are obvious
reasons for this such as provision of transportation for incoming raw materials and outgoing
finished products. Unfortunately, as a consequence, industrial units drain effluents directly into the
rivers without any consideration of the environmental degradation. The most problematic industries
for the water sector are textiles, tanneries, pulp and paper mills, fertilizer, industrial chemical
production and refineries. A complex mixture of hazardous chemicals, both organic and inorganic,
108
is discharged into the water bodies from all these industries usually without treatment (WARPO,
2000a).
The highest numbers of industrial establishments in the country are located in the North Central
(NC) region, which comprises about 49 per cent of the total sector. About 33 per cent of the
industries in the NC region are textiles, apparels, and tanneries, of which Dhaka district accounts
for almost half and Narayanganj about 32 per cent. About 65 per cent of the total chemicals,
plastics, and petroleum industries are also located in the NC region, and concentrated in and around
Dhaka, Narayanganj and Gazipur districts (WARPO, 2000a).
÷ ðð
The increasing urbanization and industrialization of Bangladesh have negative implications for
river water quality. The pollution from industrial and urban effluents in some water bodies and
rivers has reached alarming levels. The long-term effects of this contamination by organic and
inorganic substances, many of them toxic, are severe. The aquatic environment for fish and aquatic
biodiversity can be affected from harmful substances of industrial pollution. The aquatic
ecosystems pollution will also reflect negative impact on irrigation water; animal health and toxic
chemicals entering through food chain will be incalculable.
The overall surface water quality in the monsoon season is within tolerable limits, with a few
exceptions, including the rivers Buriganga, Balu, Shitalakhya, Karnaphuli, and Rupsha. Water of
the river Balu is badly contaminated by urban and industrial wastes from Tongi and the effluent
flowing out through the Begubari Khal, most of which emanates from the Tejgaon industrial area in
Dhaka. In the rivers Balu and Turag, water quality in the dry season becomes worse, with DO
concentrations becoming almost zero (Saad, 2000).
The extreme examples of this type of effect are near Dhaka at Konabari and Savar, where industrial
effluents are discharged into nearby land and water bodies without any treatment. Surface water
pollution will gradually stimulate due to the dispersed locations of industrial implementation.
Among the polluted areas, the worst problems are in the River Buriganga, where the most
significant source of pollution appears to be from tanneries in the Hazaribagh area. In the dry
season, the Dissolved Oxygen (DO) level in the river becomes very low or zero. The seasonal
variation of water quality in the Buriganga is linked with seasonal variation of water flow and the
109
operation of tanneries. The second most polluted river is the Sitalakhya, flowing on the east of
Dhaka.Industrial units at Narayanganj and Demra are one of the main sources of pollution.
Monitoring data of DoE demonstrated that the concentration of DO in the river Sitalakhya varies
between 2.1 to 2.9 mg/L during low tide. Water of the river Balu is badly contaminated by urban
and industrial wastes from Tongi and the effluent flowing out through the Begunbari Khal, most of
which emanates from the Tejgaon industrial area in Dhaka. In the rivers Balu and Turag, water
quality in the dry season becomes worse, with DO concentrations becoming almost zero (DoE,
1993).
The second most polluted river is the Sitalakhya, flowing from the east of Dhaka. Industrial units at
Narayanganj and Demra are one of the sources of the pollution. Monitoring data of the DoE
demonstrated that the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the river Sitalakhya beside the fertilizer
factory varies between 2.1 to 2.9 mg/L during low tide (DoE, 1993) and pH varies between 7.1 to
6.5 at 1981 to 1990 (DoE, 1997). The Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies (BCAS), analyzed
that EC of Sitalakhya River cross the limit and it was 110 mgL-1 during 1980 but aggressive
industrialization and improper agricultural activities, it is rise up to 1440 mgL-1 during 1998 and
TDS rises 216 to 446 mgL-1. A number of textile and leather industries discharge their industrial
effluents into a nearby small water body, the results showed that levels of COD, TSS and DO in the
water exceeded standard limits. It also showed that the total chromium concentration in sediments
and wastewaters near the discharge points of the local tannery and textile industries is very high.
The concentrations of zinc, lead, and cadmium were also found to be higher than the national
standards (BCAS, 2000).

There are increasing efforts to develop the industrial sector of the country by both stimulating the
local industries and attracting foreign investors. As a result, the growth rate of the industrial sector
is expected to rise. The growth rate of the manufacturing sector has been projected to be 11% for
the year 2000 (World Bank, 1997). As Bangladesh, attempts to attain economic development by
replacing its agricultural base with industries and rural enterprises with urban centers, pollution, and
other environmental impacts of industries are becoming critical in development planning.
110
&!
r
No civilization can survive and thrive without clean water. We as a nation are fortunate to have
plenty of this vital resource. However, the quality of this valuable resource is deteriorating very fast
without any action plan. It is only through a better understanding of the sources of pollution and
processes that affect the quality of water that we can save this precious resource for us and for our
future generations. Moreover, surface water and groundwater are inter-related. The quality of
groundwater can only be ensured through a better protection of surface water and recharge areas on
the ground.
If strict environmental monitoring is enforced as per the Environmental Conservation Rules of 1997
and other relevant environmental laws, many of the industries of Bangladesh will be come forward
to protect water pollution. So, with proper policies, laws, acts, and enforcement of laws, the point
sources of pollution in a watershed can be controlled by constructing effluent treatment plant. Non-
point sources of pollution included: agricultural run-off, urban run-off, fertilizers, pesticides, acid
rain, animal waste, raw sewage, septic tank leakage, household waste, etc. Understanding of a
problem, however, is only half of the solution. Other half of the solution lies in communal actions;
all of us can play a role in preserving the quality of water. We all need to join hands to protect this
invaluable resource, as well as our existence as a nation. Since the sources of pollution is not known
or identified, it becomes problematic to control their discharge into rivers and streams in a
watershed. This information needs to disseminate to the general public through public meetings,
newspapers, education, website, and other mass media for public awareness and to incorporate law
and policy makers.

A study was conducted by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the Bangladesh Centre for
Advanced Studies (BCAS) and the University of Leeds, UK to address the issues of increasing
water pollution from textile industries and inadequate treatment & the project ³Managing Pollution
from Small and Medium-Scale Industries in Bangladesh´ was initiated. It was funded by the EU
Asia Pro Eco Programme and the DFID Knowledge and Research Programme, between 2003 and
111
2006. The aim of the project was to reduce pollution while maintaining the profitability of the
industries and thereby ensure the incomes of the employees as well as the livelihoods of those who
depended on the natural resources that were being impacted. The activities therefore involved
cleaner production and improved wastewater treatment.
As a component of the project, the team was comprised of :
1. Mohidus Samad Khan of Australian Pulp and Paper Institute, Dept of Chemical Engineering,
Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia;
2. Shoeb Ahmed of Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State
University, Raleigh. NC 27695, USA;
3. Alexandra E. V. Evans of International Water Management Institute, 127 Sunil Mawatha,
Pelawatte, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka;
4. Matthew Chadwick of Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, UK ;worked with a
composite textile industry that had recently introduced an ETP but did not have much experience in
operating it.
In this study ,only the parameters considered to be of most importance or which give an indication
of overall pollution load (e.g. BOD and COD) were measured.This reflected the type of waste, the
national standards, and the facilities and funds that a factory would have available to them for
monitoring. Since this method was intended to be repeated regularly it could not be overly complex
or expensive.
The units that would be sampled in a standard monitoring programme of a typical ETP are
summarized in Table 3 along with the parameters that would be analysed for. Monitoring just a few
simple parameters may facilitate the assessment of the performance of the whole plant, if done in an
effective and systematic way.
112
Table 3: List of parameters checked at different sampling points

Unit Parameters Sampling

point
Equalization tank pH, TDS, TSS, BOD, COD, Outflow
Temperature
Neutralization pH Outlet, to ensure that the
Tank acid or alkali has been
properly mixed
Coagulation and pH Outlet
Flocculation
Primary Clarifier TSS, TDS, COD, pH, BOD Outflow
Biological DO, pH, samples of activated In aeration basin
Reactor sludge for microscopic examination,
Temperature
Secondary BOD, COD, TSS Outflow
Clarifier
Treated Water pH, TDS, TSS, BOD, COD Outlet

The factory in which the research was conducted undertakes knitting, dyeing and sewing of cotton
(usually referred to as a composite factory); it has a daily production capacity of 10 tonnes which is
split between dark colours (35 per cent), medium shades (15 per cent), light shades (30 per cent)
and bleached whites (20 per cent).
The factory has a conventional ETP with physicochemical and biological units as shown in Figure
1. The major units of the ETP were selected for sampling as indicated in Figure 1 and described in
Table 4.
Two sets of samples were collected from each of these points: one set was collected in the morning
and the other set in the evening. The samples were preserved below 4 RC and transported to the
analytical laboratory as quickly as possible to minimize the effect of spontaneous chemical
reactions and microbial activity in the samples. Samples testing started within 24hrs of collection.
113
Table 4: List of sampling location and objective of the sampling

Sample ID Location of Sampling Objective
1 Outflow of Equalization Tank To find out the effluent (untreated) water
characteristics(after equalization and
before P-C)
2 Outflow of Tube Settler-1 To analyze the performance of
Coagulation and Flocculation units
3 Outlet of Biological Reactor-1 To analyze the performance of
Biological Reactor-1
4 Outlet of Biological Reactor-2 To analyze the performance of Biological
Reactor-2
5 Outlet of ETP(treated water) To analyze the performance of Tube
Settler-2, Activated Carbon Filter and
Sand Filter.
Also to check whether the discharge
water is Compliant with Bangladesh
legislation or not.

It should be noted that due to the nature of the dyeing process, which can take between six and
twelve hours, the effluent reaching the treatment plant can vary throughout the day. The samples
collected were therefore a composite of several dying batches which had been combined in the
equalization tank. The assumption is that the equalization tank is of sufficient capacity and well
mixed enough to ensure the effluent passing through the system is of consistent quality. It is also
assumed that the dyeing operations taking place do not vary significantly enough for this to effect
quality over the period being studied. These are large assumptions but it is normal for such
assumptions to be made in routine monitoring of an ETP and is also a pragmatic approach when
effluent treatment is an additional activity to the core business of the industry,and one that rarely
results in increased profit.
Five key parameters were selected for analysis: pH; TDS; TSS; BOD5 and COD, because they are
included in the discharge quality standards for textile industries in Bangladesh and they are the
parameters most commonly used to monitor ETP performance.
Results
114
In this study two sampling events were undertaken and the analysis of the results is preliminary.
However, the result analysis provides the ETP managers an initial indication of how the results can
effectively be used to monitor the performance of the treatment plant.
There was an improvement in all parameters except TDS from the inflow of the treatment plant to
the outflow.Some were however still outside the discharge quality standards for textile industries in
Bangladesh, including TDS, BOD5, and COD (Table 5 and Table 6).
Table 5: Results for morning analysis
Parameters Units Bangladesh Sample No Pollution load

Standards 1 2 3 4 5 removed (%)
pH ²± 6.5-9 9.44 9.76 9.82 7.68 7.71 ±
TDS mg/L 2100 4395 4301 4819 5196 5550 -26.3
TSS mg/L 100 92 58 31 54 65 29.3
BOD5 mg/L 50 (/150*) 1000 450 350 240 195 80.5
COD mg/L 200 1287 648 510 364 291 77.4
*BOD limit 150mg/L implies only with Physico-Chemical processing
Table 6: Results for evening analysis
Parameters Units Bangladesh Sample No Pollution load

Standards 1 2 3 4 5 removed (%)
pH ²± 6.5-9 9.83 9.97 9.87 7.1 7.35 ±
TDS mg/L 2100 6852 4137 6598 4891 5168 24.6
TSS mg/L 100 133 64 80 92 79 40.6
BOD5 mg/L 50 (/150*) 1050 500 375 300 215 79.5
COD mg/L 200 1419 713 559 433 311 78.1
*BOD limit 150mg/L implies only with Physico-Chemical processing

115
,
At the inflow to the first biological reactor (point 2) the pH was outside the limits required for
bacterial growth which are between pH 4.0 and 9.5 with an optimal range of pH 6.5 - 7.5 . The
desired pH was reached only after the second biological reactor which means that the pH is likely to
have impacted negatively on biological activity in the treatment units (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The pH at different stages of the ETP

The TDS values were high and remained so throughout the process (Figure 3). They varied greatly
throughout the course of the evening monitoring period and in the morning sampling they actually
increased rather than decreased through the system. As a result the TDS value in the treated water
was at leastdouble the Bangladesh standards for TDS of 2100 mg/L.
Overall there was a 24 per cent reduction in TDS in the evening and a 26 per cent increase in the
morning.The main increase was observed in the first biological unit - the difference between the
outflow from physicochemical units, and the outflow of the first biological unit i.e. between
sampling points 2 and 3 (Figure 4).
116

Figure 3: TDS at different stages of the ETP

Figure 4: Percentage TDS removal in different stages of the ETP

The trends observed for BOD5 and COD had similar characteristics to each other, both in the
morning and evening. A significant reduction was observed in both parameters from the inflow to
the outflow (Figure 5). However, the effluent quality still did not meet the Bangladesh standards of
50 mg/L for BOD5 and 200 mg/L for COD (Table 1).

117

Figure
5: The BOD5 and COD at different stages of the ETP
The most dramatic reduction in BOD5 was observed after the flocculation and coagulation stage in
which 52-55 per cent was removed (Figure 6). This represents a satisfactory performance of the
physicochemical units although it can be generally expected that a well run physico-chemical unit
can remove 50-80 per cent of total BOD5 . The biological reactors performed poorly reducing the
BOD5 value by only 7-12 per cent.

Figure
6: The BOD5 removal in different stages of the ETP
The situation was very similar for the COD with the biological reactors apparently underperforming
(Figure 7).
118
Figure 7: The COD removal in different stages of the ETP.
A typical ETP consisting of physico-chemical and biological units can remove 90 per cent or more
of the BOD or COD present in the initial influent, when the ETP is operated efficiently . After a
series of treatment this ETP removed approximately 80 per cent of the BOD5 load (Figure 6) and 78
per cent of the COD load (Figure 7), which was not good enough to meet the national (BD) or
international (e.g. US EPA) standards

"! "
Sample factory
The overall performance of the ETP is inadequate to meet the national discharge quality standards
and therefore requires immediate interventions to address the problems. Many of these may be
management rather than structural and should therefore not require any significant financial outlay
by the factory, in fact better management of the plant could actually reduce costs.
A major issue that needs to be addressed in the equalization tank is the pH. The dosing of an acid
(usually hydrochloric acid) would lower the pH and thus bring it to within the limits required for
biological activity which would help to ensure a healthy population of bacteria in the two biological
treatment units. This would result in an overall improvement in the treatment,
119
particularly in the reduction of organic matter, measured as BOD which needs to be reduced further
in order to meet the national standards.
The TSS values of the influent were below the national standard and remained low during the
treatment process. This is unsurprising as the effluent from textile dyeing processes generally has
low TSS.
Total dissolved solids are a particular problem for textile dyeing industries because a large quantity
of salt is required in the process, all of which is disposed of with the final effluent. The TDS values
in the sample factory showed considerable variation throughout the treatment process. This may be
a result of different influxes of chemicals discharged over the course of the
dyeing process and the factory should check this more regularly so that they better understand their
waste and can manage the treatment better.
It would however be expected that the equalization tank would lessen the variation, which suggests
that the equalisation tank may not be of sufficient capacity or have a long enough retention time.
The TDS values also increased at some stages of the treatment process (Figure 4). These increases
appear to be associated with chemical dosing to the treatment plant (in this case possibly nutrients
in the biological treatment unit) which implies that the ETP operator is adding
excessive quantities of chemicals. It may also relate to the dosing of incompatible chemicals and the
underperformance of the biological reactor, which in turn is in part due to the poor control of pH.
Implications for other factories

The monitoring programme used in this factory was simple and quick, yet it clearly highlighted
some significant problems with the management of the system that were having a detrimental
impact on its efficiency.
As expected it aided the identification and diagnosis of problems within certain units. This is of far
greater benefit to the ETP manager than the knowledge that the ETP is not meeting national
standards.
It is essential that the pH in the biological units is maintained between pH 4 and 9.5 and ideally
between 6.5 and 7.5 if the bacteria are to remain alive and active and thus treat the waste. This is
reasonably simple to achieve if an automatic monitoring and dosing system is installed. Monitoring
and dosing can be done manually but it is far more efficient and practical to install
120
such a system because the pH can fluctuate significantly throughout the day, depending on the
processes in the factory.
The dosing of other chemicals must also be correct otherwise the TSS and TDS may not be
reduced, and may even increase. Managers of ETPs should regularly monitor the units in the plant
where chemical dosing takes place so that they know their waste and can be more accurate in their
dosing of chemicals. It is also good practice to perform laboratory jar tests on different types of
waste from the factory for the same reason.
Although the BOD5 and COD reduced through the system the concentrations were still above the
national standards in the final effluent. This means that there is scope for improvement through
better operation of the plant. It may be necessary to ensure that the biological reactors are
adequately aerated and that the correct nutrient composition is being added to ³feed´ the bacteria,
as textile effluent contains very little of the nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, required
for a healthy and active bacterial population. Maintaining the purity of the chemical nutrients used
is also very important in order to avoid an increase in TDS.
Factory treatment plants could potentially be modified to receive urine from the toilets (or the liquid
portion of septic tanks), which would provide the nutrients without the needs for chemical dosing
(although further steps may be required for pathogen removal if the urine is not separated from the
faeces at source).
Conclusion
In Bangladesh and other countries in the region effluent treatment from textile dyeing factories and
other industrial processes is usually required by law and often expected by international buyers.
Despite this, treatment is regularly below standards and is rarely checked either by the factory,
environment departments or buyers. There are a several reasons for this but the bottom line is
usually a lack of funds and technical expertise. These reasons are also why factories have been
found to run their ETPs sub-optimally. This study shows that through the process of simple
monitoring of key parameters at strategic places in the treatment plant, the ETP manager would be
able to optimize the treatment process and potentially save money by reducing the chemicals and
energy needed to run the system.
121
The main problems experienced by factories with ETPs are inadequate treatment due to incorrect
dosing of chemicals required in the treatment process or inactivity and even death of necessary
micro-organisms, due to the pH, insufficient oxygen or lack of nutrients.
All of these can be addressed through better management; usually chemical dosing. By regularly
monitoring and understanding their wastewater properly ETP managers can make effective
decisions to achieve optimal ETP functioning.
Furthermore, factories supplying international buyers can use this data to demonstrate their µgreen¶
credentials and thus generate more business or at the very least maintain their share in an
increasingly competitive market.

122
-6/"!)
& '
Hazards or hazardous wastes can be defined as ³anything which,because of its
quantity,concentration,or physical,chemical,or infectious characteristics may cause,or significantly
contribute to,an increase in mortality;or cause an increase in serious irreversible,or incapacitating
reversible,illness;or pose a substantial present or potential risk to human health and environment
when improperly treated,stored,transported,or disposed of,or otherwise managed.´
More specifically,RCRA(Resource Conservation & Recovery Act) defines a substance as
hazardous if it posseses any one of the following four characteristic attributes :
reactivity,ignitability,corrosivity,or toxicity.Briefly,
Ignitable substances are easily ignited and burn vigorously and persistently.Examples include
volatile liquids,such as solvents,whose vapours ignite at relatively low temperatures(defined as 60R
C or less).
Corrosive substances include liquids with pH less than 2 or greater than 12.5,and those that are
capable of corroding metal containers.
Reactive substances are unstable under normal conditions.They can cause explosions and/or
liberate toxic fumes,gases,and vapours when mixed with water.
Toxic substances are harmful or fatal when ingested or absorbed.Toxicity is determined using a
standardized laboratory test,called the extraction procedure.A substance is designated as being EP
toxic if an extract contains any of the eight toxic elements or six pesticides listed in table 5.1 in
concentrations greater than the values given.
123
Table : List of Hazardous substances

EPA hazardous Contaminant Maximum
waste number concentration(mg/L)
D004 Arsenic 5.0
D005 Barium 100
D006 Cadmium 1.0
D007 Chromium 5.0
D008 Lead 5.0
D009 Mercury 0.2
D010 Selenium 1.0
D011 Silver 5.0
D012 Endrin 0.02
D013 Lindane 0.4
D014 Methoxychlor 10.0
D015 Toxaphene 0.5
D016 2,4-D (2,4- dichlorophenoxyaceticacid) 10.0
D017 2,4,5-TSilvex(2,4,5-trichlorophenoxypropionicacid) 1.0
A wide variety of materials were identified by analysis of textile waste waters from 3 different sites
by Brent Smith,Professor of Polymer and Textile Chemistry,College of Textiles,North Carolina
State University,Raleigh, North Carolina .They are listed below :
Site #l
This sample contained a substantial amount of inorganic and organic components. About 34
different volatile organic compounds (VOC¶s) were evolved from waste water sample # l, which
was the effluent from the pretreatment system of a typical pigment printing operation in central
North Carolina. The VOC¶s were trapped in the off gases from the waste water sample and
separated into 34 distinct peaks by gas chromatography. Each of the 34 peaks was then analyzed by
mass spectrometry.
The identified compounds are shown below (grouped by the type of compound, not necessarily by
the order of elution from the gas chromatograph).
1. Perchloroethylene
2. Aliphatic Hydrocarbons, including a wide variety of materials of C8 to C15. Many
of these were are cyclic and/or branched. There were a total of 18 different materials,
including:
trimethyl cyclohexane isomers (3)
propyl cyclohexane
hexyl cyclohexane
124
ethyl cyclohexane
methylethyl cyclohexane
methyl n-propyl cyclohexane
butyl cyclohexane
deca hydro naphthalene
butyl ethyl cyclopentane
methyl decane isomers (3)
four other C9 - C12 hydrocarbons which were not identified.

3. Aromatic hydrocarbons - a variety of materials, including:
xylene isomers (3)
ethyl benzene
trimethyl benzene isomers
methyl ethyl benzene
4. Several other poorly identified hydrocarbons - (C6 - C15).
Based on the above, it appears that a petroleum distillate product such as varsol or Stoddard solvent
is in the waste water.The other non-volatile components of this sample included both organic and
inorganic materials. The total non-volatile solids were 526 ppm, of which 23% or 121 ppm were
organic and 77% or 405 ppm were inorganic.
A total of 8 non-volatile organic components were identified:
Mw Chemical Detected
310 Docosane
312 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid, butylphenylmetyhl ester
324 Tricosane
352 Pentacosane
366 Docosane, ll-butyl
380 Heptacosane
446 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid diisodecyl ester
610 Lucenin 2
The inorganic portion showed components as listed in Table X. The high antimony content likely
results from residual polymerization catalyst in the polyester used as a raw material at this site. The
125
high titanium levels result from delusterants in the polyester and other fibers. Also titanium is used
as a pigment ³white´ color. The bromine is from a flame retardant foam back coating used on
draperies. Sodium chlorine is from the salt used in dyeing ground shades. The silver source could
not be located.
Table X ± List of trace elements :

1.Titanium, 2.Tin, 3.Iodine, 4.Manganese, 5.Magnesium, 6.Copper, 7.Vanadium, 8.Chlorine,
9.Aluminium, 10.Mercury, 11.Samarium, 12.Tungsten, 13.Molybdenum, 14.Uranium,
15.Lanthanum, 16.Cadmium, 17.Arsenic, 18. Antimony, 19. Zirconium, 20.Bromine,
21.Sodium, 22.Potassium, 23.Cerium, 24. Calcium, 25. Lutetium, 26.Europium,
27.Selenium, 28.Terbium, 29. Thorium, 30.Chromium, 31.Ytterbium, 32. Hafnium,
33. Barium, 34. Neodymium, 35. Cesium, 36. Silver, 37. Nickel, 38. Scandium,
39.Rubidium, 40.Iron, 41.Zinc, 42.Cobalt.
Site #2
Twelve volatile organic materials were identified in this sample, including:
1. 2-Propanone, 2. Dichloro methane, 3.Alpha-Pinene, 4. Camphene, 5.beta-Myrcene,
6. Isicineole, 7. Benzene lmethyl-4(l-methylethyl), 8. D-Limonene, 9. Gamma-terpinene,
10. Alpha-terpinene, 11. 1,2,3- trichloro Benzene.
The non-volatile materials comprised 1084 ppm in the sample. Of these, 10% or 108 ppm were
organic and 90% or 976 ppm were inorganic. The organic materials are shown in Table XI, and the
inorganic materials in Table XII. The non-volatile organic materials appear to result from low
molecular weight cyclic oligomer (³trimer´) from high temperature dyeing of polyester. The high
potassium levels are due to the use of potassium silicate and potassium hydroxide in preparation
processes. These are preferred by some production mills because they repurtdle rinse off more
easily than the more commonly used sodium analogs.

126
Table XI - Nonvolatile Organic Materials

Identified in Sample #2
1,2 Benzenedicarboxyllic Acid, bis (l-methyl ethyl) ester
Hexanedioic Acid, mono (2-ethyl hexyl) ester
41 trace elements were also found in sample 2 which includes gold and excludes chlorine & sodium
fom Table X.
Sample #3
This sample has no volatile organic compound.Non volatile organic compounds found are listed
below :
1.Cyclohexanone, 2.Cyclohexanol, 3. 2-chloro Cyclohexanone, 4. 1-chloro,4-isocyanato Benzene,
5. Hexadecane, 6.Hexadecanoic Acid , 7. Dibutyl 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid , 8. Docosane,
9. butyl phenylmethyl ester of 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid, 10.Tricosane,
11. dioctyl ester of Hexanedioic acid.
21 trace elements were also found in sample 3.
Sample #4
This sample contained 4 volatile organic compounds :
1. thiobis Methane,
2. dichloro Methane,
3. Chloroform ,
4. Toluene.
1. Hexadecanoic Acid ,
2. dioctyl ester of Hexanedioic acid,
3. 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid bis (2-methoxyethyl) ester ,
4. 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid bis butyl(2-ethylhexyl) ester.
127
Sample #5
This sample contained 4 volatile organic compounds :
1. dichloro Methane,
2. 2-ethyl,1-hexanol,
3. Limonene,
4. Trichlorobenzene.
1. 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid bis (2-methoxyethyl) ester ,
2. Dodecanamide ,N,N- bis(2-hydroxyethyl),
3. Docosane,
4. Tetratetraconsane,
5. 9-octyl Heptadecane.
In case of Bangladesh, huge amount of chlorinated solvents are found in wastewater streams that is
used in the textile industry in the scouring operation as degreasing agents and as dye carriers.
Chlorinated solvents become hazardous waste after use in these operations.
The solvents used as dye carriers contain various dyestuffs which are complex organic compounds
that are refractory (nonbiodegradable) and hazardous. Dyestuffs contain heavy metals, such as
chromium, copper and zinc, and organics(seen from the samples). Only about 50 weight percent of
commercial dye is dyestuff. The remainder is usually nonhazardous filler (such as sugar) and
surfactant. The dyestuff ends up in the waste solvent which may be recovered on-site or sent for
off-site recycling. Some spent dyes may be released to the water treatment systems.
128
r& '
The scouring hazardous waste includes contaminated liquid solvent, bottoms recycling should be
practiced, the scouring equipment. from solvent stills when on-site and bottom sludge that arises in
cleaning The land disposal ban on chlorinated solvents, which should be implemented, requires the
generators of chlorinated solvents to dispose of these waste by either using the services of an off-
site recycler or a destructive incinerator. Recycling companies should pick up the waste solvent or
the contaminated still bottoms and return virgin, or a mixture of virgin and reclaimed solvent to the
company.
Pollution or hazard prevention programs should focus on reduction of water use and on more
efficient use of process chemicals to minimize hazards and to control them. Process changes might
include the following:
Match process variables to type and weight of fabric (reduces wastes by 10±20%).
Manage batches to minimize waste at the end of cycles.
Avoid nondegradable or less degradable surfactants(for washing and scouring) and spinning oils.
Avoid the use, or at least the discharge, of alkylphenol ethoxylates. Ozone-depleting substances
should not be used, and the use of organic solvents should be minimized.
Use transfer printing for synthetics (reduces water consumption from 250 L/kg to 2 L/kg
of material and also reduces dye consumption).Use water-based printing pastes, when feasible.
Use pad batch dyeing (saves up to 80% of energy requirements and 90% of water consumption
and reduces dye and salt usage).For knitted goods, exhaust dyeing is preferred.
Use jet dyers, with a liquid-to-fabric ratio of 4:1 to 8:1, instead of winch dyers, with a ratio of
15:1, where feasible.
Avoid benzidine-based azo dyes and dyes containing cadmium and other heavy metals. Do not use
chlorine-based dyes.
Use less toxic dye carriers and finishing agents.Avoid carriers containing chlorine, such as
chlorinated aromatics.
Replace dichromate oxidation of vat dyes and sulfur dyes with peroxide oxidation.
Reuse dye solution from dye baths.
Use peroxide-based bleaches instead of sulfur and chlorine-based bleaches, where feasible.
Control makeup chemicals.
129
Reuse and recover process chemicals such as caustic (reduces chemical costs by 30%) and size
(up to 50% recovery is feasible).
Replace nondegradable spin finish and size with degradable alternatives.
Use biodegradable textile preservation chemicals. Do not use polybrominated diphenylethers,
dieldrin, arsenic, mercury, or pentachlorophenol in mothproofing, carpet backing, and other
finishing processes. Where feasible, use permethrin for mothproofing instead.
Control the quantity and temperature of water used.
Use countercurrent rinsing.
Improve cleaning and housekeeping measures (which may reduce water usage to less than 150
m3/t of textiles produced).
Recover heat from wash water (reduces steam consumption).

Replacement of existing processes with more eco-friendly processes can also reduce
hazards.Description of some of the processes are given on the following page :

Textile industries of Bangladesh can be considerably benefitted by adopting following eco-friendly
biotechnological processes listed below on the table for reducing textile effluents :
! )"+/ "!/)"!),"

Desizing
Starch size is used to strengthen Oxidizing agents or sodium Superior thermostable and
the fabric so that it withstands hydroxide are used but it resistant (to chemicals) bacterial
further weaving process.But this damages the fabric. analyses should be used to
size needs to be removed degrade starch size.
afterwards since sized cloth
shows less uptake of dyes.
Scouring and Bleaching
To remove pectins,waxes,colour, Xylanase enzymes should be
residual seed coatings,honeydew used.
sugars and insect secretions
which cause stickiness and
severe processing problems.
Bleaching
Chlorine or hydrogen peroxide is Enzyme catalyse with wide pH
used as bleaching agents.Series optima should be used to
of washes are required(between degrade excess hydrogen
primary bleaching and dyeing) to peroxide.Water consumption can
130
remove remaining H2O2. be reduced.

Biostoning
To achieve dye fading,contrast Pumice stone is used.Extreme Cellulase enzyme should be used
and broken fibers as per fashion. fading,abrasion,more machine for uniform and quality finishing
wear,more cost of maintenance of fabric.
are the problems.
Biopolishing
To remove fine surface Cellulase enzyme should be used
fuzz(protruding fine fibres) and to remove fuzz from fabric and
fibrils (which give rough look to give it a permanent softening
and stiff touch) from cotton and effect.
viscose fabrics.
Carbonising
³Lungies´ are made by weaving 65 % sulphuric acid is used. New cellulase enzyme
polyester and cotton µsoftzyme¶ can be used as a
threads.Cotton fibres are then replacement to acid treatment.
destroyed.This gives light net
effect to the fabric.
Silk Degumming
To remove impurities like,wax Conventionally done by using Enzymatic(Degummase)
gums and sericin,a protein alkaline soaps. degumming removes sericin by
substance that covers the silk proteolytic action without doing
fibre or fibroin.These impurities any harm to fibroin.Better
make silk coarse and lustreless quality silk with luster,treatment
at lower temperature,no use of
soaps are the advantages.
Jute retting Conventional retting with Rettizyme does controlled and
microbial attack on jute was reproducible retting in less than
uncontrolled process taking days 24 hours.Enzyme solution can be
or even weeks. recycled.
Wool finishing
To get increased Protease enzymes should be
comfort(reduced prickle,greater used.
softness) and improved surface
appearance and pilling
performance.

Ô

The textile industry has a big pollution problem. The World Bank estimates that 17 to 20 percent of
industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and treatment. They¶ve also identified 72 toxic
chemicals in water solely from textile dyeing, 30 of which are cannot be removed. This represents
an appalling environmental problem for the clothing designers and other textile manufacturers.
With consumers eager to purchase eco-friendly products, water pollution from dye houses and
coloration treatments could be a major hurdle for apparel manufacturers. How can a company claim
131
to sell a ³green´ shirt if the dyeing process used to color the garment wastes and pollutes water?
Some companies have taken action and removed dyes from certain garments, but it seems unlikely
that everyone would be happy with off-white or beige as the only choices at the store. Consumers
want color and variety in their clothing.
Fortunately, for companies producing goods with synthetic fabric there is a solution: AirDye®.
AirDye is a dyeing process that uses air instead of water to dye garments, allowing companies to
create garments with vivid designs and colors, without polluting water and environment.
Here are the facts about AirDye technology:
K Uses 95 percent less water

K Emits 84 percent less Green House Gases (GHG)
K Requires 87 percent less energy
K Reduces damaging of goods (Up to one percent of goods are damaged using AirDye
compared to 10 percent of traditionally dyed garments)
K No Rules Wash®. Wash at any temperature, with whites or colors, with or without bleach
K Allows for new designs. Dye different sides of a single piece of fabric different colors or
designs
When creating eco-friendly clothing, drapes, or even carpet, it is important not to forget the role dye
plays as an environmental ill. Consumers are becoming quite conscious of how bad traditional
textile dyeing is for the environment but have put up with it until now because there has not been a
viable alternative. AirDye is that alternative.
Here¶s an example of how Air Dye compares to the traditional wet dye process for 25,000 medium
mens t-shirts:
132
This unique dyeing process is already used to create vibrant, double-sided swimsuits for Miss
Peaches Swimwear, used with 100% recycled PET for eco-chic t-shirts by A Lot To Say, ground-
breaking hospitality industry window coverings from Hunter Douglas Hospitality, designer
handbags by JulieApple, and mostly recently, the runway fashions of New York design house
Costello Tagliapietra.
In the race to ³go green,´ companies need an advantage. They will get that by using this µAir Dye¶
technology.
Ô ! "
Science Daily (Jan. 7, 2009) ²Research Scientist Anne Vuorema of MTT Agrifood Research
Finland proves in her doctoral dissertation that glucose can serve as a reducing agent of indigo. This
finding is significant for devising more ecological dyeing practices for the textile industry.
Indigo is a vat dye and it needs to be reduced to its water-soluble leuco-form before dyeing. This
allows the actual dye to pass on to textile fibres. Glucose is known to be a good reducing agent, and
Vuorema¶s work demonstrates that it also works with indigo.
Glucose dyeing seems to suit plant-derived fibres, such as cotton and flax, which withstand a high
pH (11±12). However, at this stage it cannot be recommended for animal fibres, such as wool and
silk (which can only withstand a pH of up to 9).
Anne Vuorema¶s field of study is not widely known, and there are perhaps only 20 researchers
worldwide whose work focuses on plant-derived indigo. Vuorema and MTT launched the indigo
133
research as part of the EU Spindigo project in 2001±2004. The project prompted questions which
Vuorema attempted to answer in her dissertation.
Vuorema works as an external researcher for MTT Plant Production Research. The Finnish Cultural
Foundation granted a scholarship for her doctoral dissertation in three years. In 2007, the Academy
of Finland funded her research at the University of Bath in England. This is where she has
conducted most of her electrochemical research.
Vuorema conducted her research at the University of Bath and the University of Reading in 2004±
2006. Professor Philip John at the University of Reading was the leader of the Spindigo project and
he also supervised Vuorema¶s research in Reading.
Anne Vuorema¶s research provides answers that enable researchers to improve the extraction of
indigo from the leaves of dyer¶s woad (Isatis tinctoria L.). Her work enhances the energy efficiency
of dyeing and can potentially promote the profitable use of plant-derived indigo.
Dyer¶s woad is the best known of all indigo-producing plants in Europe. Plant-derived indigo was
commonly produced until the early 20th century when synthetic indigo replaced it. The blue dye
used in jeans, for instance, is nowadays synthetically produced from oil, in a process which wastes
non-renewable natural resources and burdens the environment with synthetic chemicals.
)!!/+"!) !"%)!),!
In her dissertation research, Anne Vuorema developed a new electrochemical method for
determining the purity of indigo. She reduced plant-derived indigo using glucose and measured the
indigo concentration in the mixture using a new method. This is a great improvement in
determining the purity of plant-derived indigo.
The method can also be applied to assess the purity of other similar chemicals.
³The degree of purity of plant-derived indigo is fairly low. Crude indigo has a dye content of less
than 50%, while synthetic indigo has a dye content of over 95%. The impurities and means to
reduce them are not yet well known,´ Vuorema explains.
Businesses look for guaranteed standard quality of dye. At the same time, ecologically geared
companies are looking for increasingly natural methods for dyeing fabrics, among other things.
134
³Plant-derived indigo is a marginal, alternative product, and it does not currently compete with
synthetic indigo,´ Vuorema says.
Vuorema also investigated indirect electrochemical reduction. She discovered that 1.8-
dihydroxyanthraquinone was an efficient catalyst for glucose-induced reduction. Electrochemical
reduction can only be introduced by major companies as it requires investment in special
equipment.
³We still need to achieve a lower pH in glucose reduction and solve the matter of impurities,´
Vuorema muses.

135
4+,"(**
j

The adsorption of colored compounds from the textile dyeing effluents of Bangladesh on granulated
activated carbons produced from indigenous vegetable sources by chemical activation with zinc
chloride was studied by Ajoy KumarDas & Mohammad Mainul Karim of Department of Applied
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Sang Hak Lee of
Department of Chemisty, Kyungpook National University, Taegu , Republic of Korea.
The most important parameters in chemical activation were found be the chemical ratio of ZnCl2 to
feed (3:1), carbonization temperature (450±465 °C) and activation time (80 min). The adsorbances
at 511 nm (red effluent) and 615 nm (blue effluent) were used for color estimation. It is established
that at optimum temperature (50 °C), time of contact (30±40 min) and adsorbent loading (2 g lí1),
activated carbons developed from Segun saw-dust and water hyacinth showed substantial capability
to remove coloring materials from the effluents. It is observed that adsorption of reactive dyes by
all sorts of activated carbons is higher than disperse dyes. It is explained that activated carbon,
because of its acidic nature, can better adsorb reactive dye particles containing large number of
nitrogen sites and ±SO3Na group in their structure. The use of carbons would be economical, as
saw-dust and water hyacinth are waste products and abundant in Bangladesh.

136
52))++
On the following pages,pollution prevention for the textile industry is reviewed, including a brief
summary of present practices and an analysis of future needs and opportunities. Barriers and
facilitating factors are also identified.

r
The textile industries of Bangladesh has a major impact not only on the nation¶s economy but also
the economic and environmental quality of life in many communities. Textiles is the leading
provider of manufacturing jobs, with Gazipur as the nation¶s number one place in primary textile
employment and production.
Textile processing requires the use of vast amounts of water, chemicals and energy, and therefore it
has important effects on environmental quality in textile manufacturing regions. In Gazipur alone,
there are about 200 permitted textile wastewater point discharge sources, as well as hundreds of
municipal systems in which textile operations are significant industrial users.This indicates the
immense potential of pollution source reduction.
Air quality issues are also important in textiles, with facilities in Gazipur alone reporting air toxics
emissions . In addition to air toxics concerns, most textile mills operate steam generation plants
which produce boiler emissions.
Although small in comparison to public utility electric power generating plants, textile sources are
significant. In addition, the emerging issue of textiles and indoor air quality which is now under
intense scrutiny.
Solid waste is also produced in large quantities, and hazardous waste in small quantities in some
operations.
In many cases, destruction of these wastes is not feasible for economic, technical or political
reasons. For example, Savar ranks 1st nationally in the production of hazardous waste,but has no
permitted hazardous waste disposal facility.
In light of all of the above, it is easy to see the regional and national importance of pollution control
in textile operations.

( r r r r r
137
Textile waste amounts and characteristics are well documented, as are state of the art pollution
prevention practices. To summarize those documents, current commercial textile pollution
prevention practices include
Chemical alternatives, substitutions
Consumer, installer, end user information
Design stage planning of processes, products, facilities
Developing markets for wastes
Enhanced chemical expertise and general industry competence
Equipment maintenance and operations audit
Global, integrated view of manufacturing
High extraction, low carryover process step separations
Incoming raw material quality control
Inventory control
Maintenance, cleaning, nonprocess chemical control
Material utilization in cutting and sewing
New and improved equipment
Optimized chemical handling practices
Process alternatives
Process modification,
Raw material prescreening (prior to use)
Raw material substitution
Reducing disinformation, politics
Risk assessment methods, data, and procedures
Scheduling to minimize machine cleaning
Segregation, direct reuse
Standard tests, methods and definitions
Technology transfer of pollution prevention successes
Training programs, worker attitudes
Waste audit
Several types of wastes have already been successfully targeted by the industry, with emphasis on
four specific problem areas.
138
The first problem area is hard-to-treat wastes, ie wastes which are persistent or resistant to normal
treatment. For textiles, these wastes include color, metal, phosphate, phenol and certain organic
materials, especially surfactants which resist biodegradation. Because of the extremely expensive
and difficult procedures involved in removing these via wastewater treatment, source reduction is
an economical and attractive alternative to treatment.
A second major accomplishment of the textile industry is source reduction of waste which becomes
widely dispersed when discharged. Wastes from textile processes often are reduced or captured for
recycle/reuse by process modifications at the source because, once discharged, they tend to become
widely dispersed and hard to treat. Machinery design, chemical substitution, procedure changes or
primary control measures can often accomplish better results at lower cost than treatment. In
addition, reclaimed waste in concentrated form (ie not dispersed) usually has its highest potential
commercial reuse value.
The third type of waste is offensive or hazardous wastes, especially materials of high aquatic
toxicity. For textiles, these include metals, various types of organic solvents and surfactants. In
many instances, chemical substitutions can effectively reduce production of undesirable process by-
products. Frequently, treatment of these hazardous or toxic process wastes leads to undesirable
waste treatment solids, for example, metal bearing sludges.
The final problem area is large volume wastes. These cam be successfully reduced by process
modification, chemical substitution, and on-site or off-site reuse. Each of the above types of waste
may originate from a variety of textile operations.
The textile industry has an outstanding documented record of pollution prevention activities. Many
case histories of reduction/conservation strategies are available. Case histories, in-plant techniques,
and actual production experiences have generally resulted in economic gains for the processor as a
separate benefit from the waste reduction, as well as providing improved compliance with permits
and/or pretreatment specifications.
One should go beyond this view of success, however, to define specific identifiable needs and
opportunities for the textile industry to advance its already extensive efforts in the area of
pollution prevention.

r ) *rr r r
139
Several specific technical needs, if met, will increase the ability of the textile industry to reduce
pollution at its sources. The two main opportunities for advancing pollution prevention in textiles
are:
Technology transfer of successful strategies
Addressing global needs, not assignable to any specific process

5')
Overall technical needs and opportunities which conceptually should not be limited to any one
specific process include :
Developing overall global views of pollution prevention,
Applying known pollution prevention technologies,
Information systems for optimal decision, and
Improving process understanding.

5'$)%)B"*
Unlike most industries, textiles is highly fragmented, which makes developing an overall global
outlook is particularly difficult. Most textile manufacturers have initiated pollution reduction on a
process by process basis, but few have achieved the kind of global thinking which transcends
individual process boundaries, and can produce maximum results. At each processing step,
decisions are made which impact downstream processes, beginning with product design, continuing
through each process and ultimately involving even the consumer as well. In many cases,
processing assistants are added only to be later removed by energy and chemically intensive
scouring procedures. Additives include lubricants, spin finishes, agricultural chemicals, size
materials, knitting oils, winding lubricants and tints. The challenge is to develop an overall global
pollution prevention scheme which transcends individual operations. Such an outlook would
consider the downstream impact of processing residues in terms of interferences and
incompatibilities. To implement this global perspective requires better information exchange
systems, which in most cases do not exist in the textile manufacturing complex. This information
issue is discussed in more detail below. Another requirement is incentives, which can be difficult to
establish in a fragmented manufacturing complex such as textiles.
140
Global needs include not only the issues of design, additives¶ effects on downstream processing and
the need for later removal by scouring, but also developing an overall view of manufacturing in
terms of containers, machine parts, print screens, drums, mix tanks, etc to reduce solvent loss, drag
out, and impurity build up. This affects not only the process¶ pollution, but also the product quality.
Such thinking should extend even to consumer use of product in terms of aftermarket treatments,
cleaning solvents, use conditions, installation and maintenance; keeping in mind that the product
itself will eventually become a waste.

5'$$!! (+"
Application of known technologies based on documented studies often produces great benefits,
however, accurate information about the pollution potential of various processes and products is
needed, to ensure optimal results. A surprising amount of confusing information is distributed,
however, for two fundamental reasons. One is the lack of standardized environmental terminology
and testing methods, and the other is the propagation of obsolete data from old literature. The latter
is a greater problem in textiles than other industries because, despite the fact that textiles is a mature
industry, its chemistry has been developed relatively recently. The entire industry changed with the
commercialization of synthetic fibers in the late1980¶s . Unfortunately, pollution information
developed prior to 2000 is nill and is not quoted in textile reviews in spite of excellent and easily
accessible information sources. Most of this lack of information was developed during a time when
commercial processing was not comparable to modern practices. An improved comprehensive and
critically accurate literature review is now in press for the textile mills. The opportunity is to
accomplish great pollution reduction while at the same time increasing profits by using proven
methods. The challenge is to critically review literature in terms of modem textile commercial
practice as well as the best pollution prevention practices.

5'$'(+" ""% "
Another major global need is to develop information distribution systems which will facilitate
maximum pollution reduction practices. In essence there are two types of information structures
which must be united. In textiles there is quite a large gap between the management information
systems and technical information systems. The challenge is to provide management, sales and
design personnel with information which enables proper decision making, eg product design,
141
process selection, scheduling, and marketing. Although management and technical information
must differ in format to accommodate differing backgrounds, ie less technical experience of
management/sales/design vis a vis less business experience of chemists/engineers, it must have
significant correlation and unification of technical and business concepts. There have been several
attempts to develop such information systems with significant degrees of success.

5'.!/"!)"
At a fundamental level, even some of the most common and straightforward textile chemicals and
processes are not well understood by experts, much less production supervisors, workers and
managers. For example, conditions leading to unreacted monomer and catalyst in fiber, the process
of bleaching, the role of spin finishes, surface phenomena (eg fouling), preparation processes, and
dye aggregation are, in many cases, poorly understood. This is true for machines, fiber, chemical
and process issues. Other examples include the role of chlorinated solvents in cleaning; optimal
methods for use of non-production chemical cleaners for dye machines, pad rolls, printing screens
and rollers; the role of knitting oils and warp sizes; and how silicate stabilizes peroxide bleaching.
The opportunity is to reduce pollution through better fundamental understanding of processes and
systems.

5'0<") (!+"
As indicated above, the textile industry has already developed a relatively comprehensive approach
to pollution prevention by source reduction for several types of wastes. However there is still much
to be done. Currently, the textile industry is being called on to address even more difficult
challenges in pollution control. Further efforts and resources will be required to solve the new
important emerging environmental issues, i.e
Indoor air quality,
Color residues in textile dyeing/printing wastewater,
Massive discharges of electrolytes,
Toxic air emissions,
Improving treatability of wastes,
Elimination of low levels of metals from wastewater,
Aquatic toxicity, and
142
Technology transfer of existing pollution reduction knowledge.

In addition to these new regulatory challenges, there are some very high volume waste streams
which deserve attention. These are salt, knitting oils and warp sizes.
One major technical challenge is to provide management, design, scheduling and planning
departments with credible and convincing forecasting of future constraints and requirements based
on technically accurate assessments of future regulatory issues, as listed above. A critical study
defining best pollution reduction management practices for specific future regulatory problems
would provide a basis for developing better industrial pollution prevention programs.
It is not feasible to solve the above problems by treatment systems alone. In fact, improving waste
treatment processes themselves often depends on producing more treatable, less dispersable, or less
persistent wastes. Also, treatment is in many cases more efficient on concentrated waste,therefore
mixing together offensive or otherwise incompatible wastes is undesirable. Thus, future
improvements in waste treatment are in a sense related to pollution prevention.

5'& ! " !"!/ )"
One particularly important need is to introduce engineering considerations into fabric design and
production scheduling. Presently, textile fabric design is primarily coloristic, artistic and aesthetic.
Production scheduling is usually market driven with secondary consideration of problems
created,for example, by excessive color changes and associated machine cleaning. Better design
systems based on engineering and chemical principles will improve environmental and other
process considerations. Designers and scheduling departments are rarely aware of product attributes
(eg colors) which produce high pollution loads, cause scheduling difficulties or require excessive
machine cleaning. The opportunity is to provide artificial intelligence or expert systems which will
assist designers and process schedulers. Examples include not only color selection, but also fiber
blend selection, knit or woven constructions, etc. The same reasoning applies to sales/customer
relationships which should, but often do not, consider the environmental impact of product
specifications.

+"" !
Advancements in engineering methodology are also needed in risk assessment and waste audits.
143
Most mills use either direct measurement of waste for existing processes, or mass balance estimates
at the design stage to determine potential wastes from processes. Direct measurement of waste is
often difficult, and of course can not be done at the design stage before process start up.
Mass balance estimates have severe limitations, in that the difference between large volume of raw
materials and large volume of product leaves a small difference for the waste number, which (being
the difference of two large numbers) is highly uncertain. Thus one can see the need for standard
emissions factors for textile operations.
Using emission factors to predict the ultimate fate of pollutants can greatly improve waste audit
accuracy. Also, the simplicity of using standard emissions factors provides an opportunity to
examine processes more efficiently, thereby reducing more pollution with a given amount of
resources (eg time, personnel). This also offers an opportunity to better evaluate processes in terms
of problem wastes and to target high volume wastes from inefficient processes (eg garment dyeing)
as well as difficult waste from efficient processes (e..g flame retardant backcoating).
Finally, emissions factors are one of the few accurate ways to predict trace and fugitive emissions
such as hydrocarbons and metals.
Textiles, unlike most industries, has no standard emissions factors for many specific raw materials
and processes. There are two notable studies which estimate amounts of certain pollutants based on
production volume, but the pollutants included in that data are very limited. Since the completion of
these studies, there have been further regulations of priority pollutants, locally regulated organic
compounds and toxic air pollutants. The need is to understand the environmental fate of all process
chemicals, to identify the precursors of chemical wastes, and to develop emissions factors for
various production situations. Then, process engineers and schedulers will have the opportunity to
control these pollutants at the planning stage. Emissions factors are a key to planning because many
of the most offensive toxic air and water pollutants from textiles either are fugitive emissions or
result from trace impurities in high volume raw materials. In this case, mass balance is essentially
useless in any practical sense. It is very important that these studies include maintenance and
machine cleaning chemicals as well as process chemicals.

+!)
Another need is for engineering definitions and standard test protocol of waste and environmental
parameters. At present, even the term ³biodegradable´ is not defined. Well defined, quantitative
144
understandable ratings for environmental and waste attributes (eg aquatic toxicity, treatability) will
enable engineers to make better assessments of risk, process trade offs and the like.

,!"("!,, ""("!
The previous information defines global needs and opportunities which can be applied to specific
processing situations as indicated in the following sections.

"%83/"! )
There are several needs and opportunities from the fiber perspective. These include, for synthetics,
the development of improved spin finishes and fibers with lower amounts of residual monomer and
catalyst and for natural fibers, elimination of minerals, metals and agricultural residues including
biocides. Also, better fiber selection could afford the opportunity to reduce the amount of chemical
finishing required.

," ""/
Proprietary spin finishes are added to synthetic fibers to provide fiber lubrication and other
desirable properties, such as static electricity control. The chemical composition of spin finishes is a
closely guarded trade secret but, in almost all cases, they must be removed prior to dyeing and
finishing to ensure uniform penetration of fabric by dyes and finishes, and to avoid reaction or
precipitation with incompatible downstream process chemicals. Also, volatile components of these
spin finishes produce air pollution when vaporized by high temperature processes such as
heatsetting, dye thermofixation, drying and curing of finishes. To prevent these problems, spin
finishes must be scoured from the goods prior to dyeing and finishing, thereby producing polluted
wastewater. Thus there is a need for better ways to control the surface and electrical properties of
fibers without the use of additives which interfere with downstream processing, quality, and
associated pollution potential. The challenge is first to better understand the role of fiber lubricity in
textile processes and textile structures, and then to use that knowledge to develop better spin
finishes, which do not interfere or pollute. Desirable lubricity and electrical properties could
potentially be provided by polymer surface modifications, such as introducing permanent additives,
or by physico-mechanical treatment (eg plasma).
"/ "3 "%
145
Another challenge is to produce synthetic fibers with minimum amounts of unreacted monomer,and
to use less harmful catalysts and additives (eg delusterants) in polymerization reactions.
Many toxic pollutants from textile wet processing operations have been identified . They are in
many cases the same materials which can be extracted from raw fibers. Making polymerization
reactions more efficient and more robust to process variations potentially would reduce or eliminate
these undesirable pollutants from wastewater streams of wet processors.
Natural fibers present a similar challenge, but different pollution issues are involved. Agricultural
residues such as pesticides, herbicides and defoliants can lead to aquatic toxicity and other
problems from preparation wastewater. Processing solutions tend to leach metals out of textile
substrates. The challenge to develop cleaner agricultural production practices, to inherently
increase insect and disease resistance, requiring less chemical additives, or perhaps safer or less
offensive additives.

3
The first synthetic textile colorant was produced in the 1860¶s when Perkin oxidized aniline to
produce Mauvine. By the early 1880¶s, diazotization was a known reaction, and chemists like
Greiss, Walter and Boettiger attempted to synthesize commercially useful dyes with that method.
During the ensuing century of dye development, thousands of synthetic colorants have been
produced and used commercially. Traditionally, dye manufacturers¶ goals have been produce low
cost dyes with high tinctorial value, brilliance, and good application and fastness properties; in
particular, high resistance to washing, cracking, light, oxidation (ozone), reduction (gas fading),
chlorine attack, acids and alkalis, etc. Although safety has, over time, become a consideration in the
synthesis of dye from intermediates, treatability has not been a significant consideration in dye
design. Dye research, until now, has focused on dyes with improved stability, thus more resistant to
treatment. For example: in the 1880¶s, dyes would fade in 5 standard fading units (SFU) of light
exposure. By 1980, 50 to 100 SFU light was the norm. The next generation of dyes under current
development for automotive uses will withstand over 1000 SFU. Chemists, by their success at
developing highly stable dyes, have produced very difficult to treat color wastes from dyeing and
printing operations. The challenge is to resolve the competing objectives of product quality and dye
waste treatability by developing dyes which are more treatable, less dispersable, less persistent and
less offensive.
146

*" 3 ((
As indicated above, the textile industry needs a new generation of dyestuffs based on better
treatability, higher exhaustion thus-less color residue in wastewater, and safer intermediates, while
maintaining desirable tinctorial, cost and fastness properties. The application properties of these
dyes of the future should be adequate in terms of repeatability, compatibility with existing
equipment, controllability, etc. This new generation of dyes should require fewer chemical dyeing
assistants, especially salt, retarders and accelerants. Fiber reactive dyes for cotton, which are the
fastest growing class of dyes over the last 20 years, are promising for this major opportunity to
reduce or eliminate some of the most intractable emerging problems enumerated above, ie
Color residues in dyeing and printing wastewater,
Massive electrolyte discharges,
Aquatic toxicity,
Toxic air emissions,
Improving treatability of wastes, and
Elimination of low levels of metals from wastewater.
One approach which has been proposed is to make dyes more reactive, however without higher
affinity properties the above goals can not be accomplished.
Another important opportunity is the development of azo dyes baaed on iron instead of other more
harmful metal ions such as cobalt, nickel, chromium, nickel, lead, and zinc. This line of research
has already shown promise in substituting iron for cobalt in Acid Bed 182 and Acid Blue 171, and
also iron for chromium in Acid Black 172.(19) These new dyes are non mutagenic and of course do
not introduce undesirable metals in dyeing wastewater.Use of eco-friendly natural dyes should also
be considered.

*,,)"!"/
There is also the need to develop new application methods especially for existing fiber reactive
dyes on cotton. One successful approach is pad batch dyeing, which is well known. Other methods
are also needed, especially for tubular knits and other substrates not adaptable to pad batch dyeing.
Using alternative electrolytes or other methods to control dye affinity and exhaustion via solubility
control and fiber zeta potential is another opportunity which begs investigation.
147

,"3
The need for better disclosure of chemical constitution of chemical specialties is important. The
same challenge exists for dyes. In the past, dyes have been classified by chemical structure and
applications factors in the j # !$ For nontechnical business reasons, this indexing system
seems to be coming to an end, due to the withdrawal of support by many of the major dyestuff
companies. In the future, dyes will become more proprietary, like specialty products, with
associated loss of information for the user. Lack of information in the future will make evaluation
of pollution problems, substitutions, etc even more difficult for textile mills because they will know
less about the chemical constitution and structure of the dyes which they are using.

/+"!),!")"
Specialty textile processing assistants are a unique group of products, which are not understood
very well by outsiders to the textile industry. They are used in large quantities with relatively little
information about their pollution potential. Listings contained over 5000 products in 100 categories
which were marketed by 175 companies under 1800 trade names. Each product is a proprietary
blend of chemical commodities. The composition is not revealed to the user, nor are the pollution
characteristics (eg aquatic toxicity).
There is a clear need for disclosure of user information, which is in a sense a business issue,
including potential incompatibilities with upstream process residues. But there are also technical
needs of better data on these mixtures, as well as more accurate aquatic toxicity data. Toxicity
reduction programs are often frustrated because comparative evaluation of substitute chemicals is
almost impossible. Test results for aquatic toxicity often correlate poorly between labs due to
nonstandardized test conditions, species variations, etc.
The incentive to establish a good pollution prevention program is often economic. These programs
are often justified through a ³pollution prevention pays profits´ type of thinking. The need for better
risk/benefit assessment and more realistic waste goals, as well as realistic forecasting of benefits
and liabilities therefore is critical. The challenge is to eliminate the barrier of poor technical
information described above. This also contributes to the better technical understanding of
processes discussed earlier.

148
/+"!)++""
In addition to specialties, textiles uses massive amounts of commodity chemicals, eg acid, alkali,
salt, warp size, fiber, water. A typical cotton production facility might use commodities that is
greater that the weight of product produced. It is not unusual to find cotton dyehouses which
discharge 3000 ppm of salt in the wastewater. There are two needs in this area. The first challenge
is to reduce the amounts of commodities, especially salt, required for dyeing. The second is to
determine the trace impurities in commodities and to seek better sources of commodities, or better
methods of manufacturing commodities, which reduce or eliminate offensive trace materials.
The second major need, to identify and eliminate trace impurities from commodity raw materials, is
crucial. Tests of textile wastewater have clearly shown the presence of toxic materials which also
have been detected as impuritiesin fibers and chemical commodities. Further work shows
that these toxic wastewater pollutants are present in significant amounts in high volume raw
materials (eg fibers) as well as salt and alkalis. Major needs exist in this area, especially related to
zinc in salt, low level impurities in fibers (ie monomer, catalyst, delusterants), metals in caustic, and
impurities (eg metals, organics) in raw water supplies.
The current practice of reusing waste commodities internally or from other industries can cut
consumption and associated pollution discharge of commodities. This is generally a good practice,
but impurities must be considered also. Caution and more information with respect to the above is
needed in the reuse of commodities.

J +"8,""
In yarn spinning, routine waste production is minimal and more or less unavoidable. Also, most
waste is recycled into further uses. Therefore the main opportunities are related to additives and
how they affect downstream processing, much like spin finishes discussed previously. Targets for
consideration include tint oversprays, winding emulsions, coning oils, lubricants, and in some cases
biocides used for mildew suppression. This is an area where global attitudes can contribute greatly.
In some cases the yam mill also applies sizes or lubricants, which will be reviewed under fabric
formation in the next section. The need is to assure compatibility of additives with downstream
processes, and to eliminate potential interferences to later processes. The challenge is to develop
specific products for spinning mill use which have minimal downstream impact. This has been done
149
to a certain extent with low BOD winding emulsions and waxes which do not pollute when
removed, but not with other spinning additives noted above.

%"! +"
Sizes and knitting oils added to yarns before and during fabric processing are one of the greatest
routing intentionally created pollution stream in textiles. Typically 6% or more of the weight of the
goods is added as size or knitting oil, only to be removed and discarded in the next step of the
process (preparation/desizing). Although size recovery is possible, knitting oils are never
recovered. Although there are a few spectacularly successful size recovery systems in operation,
the textile industry, for several valid reasons, makes no use of size recovery. This is equivalent to
thousands upon thousands of tons of intentionally created waste, making it along with water, salt
and cutting room waste the highest volume waste materials in textile manufacturing, and perhaps all
US manufacturing. The need is to dramatically reduce this. The challenges are to:
Remove logistical and technical barriers to size reclamation and reuse
Provide more incentives for recovery
Develop fabric forming methods which require minimal sizes and knitting lubricants
Design yarns and fabric structures which require less sizes and lubricants to create Recovery can
only be done with certain types of sizes, notably polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), which is roughly one
third of the total size used. The remainder comprises non recoverable sizes, such as starch. Less
than one third of all PVA is recovered. There are several technical and business barriers, including
the practice of applying PVA in mixtures with sizes which inhibit recovery, high expense of
shipping recovered PVA concentrate solutions, mixing goods containing different sizes at the
desizing plant, and lack of understanding of recovery potential.
Regardless of the approach taken, there is a clear need for significant efforts to reduce what is
undoubtedly two of the largest industrial waste streams in all of US industrial manufacturing: warp
sizes and knitting oils.

%"! !
Certain indoor air quality factors are also a function of fabric design, structure and formation.
Preliminary modeling of pollutant exchange zones shows that fabric structure, air permeability and
velocity slip factors are all important parameters in the emission, sorption and release of indoor air
150
pollutants by textiles and multilayer textile containing products. The opportunity is to design textile
containing products which inherently produce improved indoor air quality and minimize pollutant
exchange by understanding fabric/air interactions at the microscopic level. Of course, another
opportunity in indoor air quality is to design and produce fabrics which inherently require less
chemical stabilization, thus eliminating the need for chemical finishing, with associated reductions
in manufacturing pollution as well as lower risk of air emissions from applied chemicals.

!"8,"9 3"9 ""/"
Typically over 50% of pollution from textile preparation, dyeing and finishing processes results
from removal of upstream processing residues which, if not removed, would interfere with dyeing
and finishing. A significant portion of pollution also results from application of chemical fabric
stabilizers, stiffeners, softeners, etc to adjust the characteristics of the fabric to suit the intended end
use. Thus, pollution prevention in wet processing is intimately related to the global views advocated
throughout this document. If it were not for the need to remove contaminants via preparation and
overcome technical design deficiencies via finishing, dyeing and printing would be the main tasks
in textile wet processing.
Pollution reduction has been utilized very successfully in wet processing. Even so, there are still
significant opportunities for advancement. Many of these are related to chemical specialties and
commodities discussed previously, as well as technology transfer of successful methods already
used by more sophisticated operations.

3")
One important need is to improve process control, especially in dyeing operations. The resulting
color consistency, coupled with appropriate numerical color specifications, could provide the
opportunity to cut adjacent garment (product) panels or parts from widely separated areas of fabric,
thus diminishing waste potential in cutting and sewing by improving marker efficiency. In order to
do that, more uniform fabrics are needed. There are many factors which are beyond the dyer¶s
control. The use of controllable factors to offset uncontrollable variations and thus produce more
consistent color repeats has been proven in the laboratory, using non parametric methods such as
neural network and fuzzy logic based real-time multi-channel adaptive control algorithms. The
economic and pollution control benefits of achieving this in commercial dyeing operations will be
151
immense. This will not only apply to improved material utilization for piece dyed goods, but also
yam waste will be reduced in weaving and knitting through better yarn utilization in yarn dyed
fabrics.
Another need is better parametric models of complex dye systems fiber reactives) for control
purposes. Quite sophisticated parametric thermodynamic and kinetic dyeing models are available
for many dye classes, however there are still major opportunities for improving these models and
also for utilizing them in parametric control algorithms or for the purpose of ³training´ non
parametric control models. The challenge is to develop methods of parameter estimation which are
simple and economical enough to apply in commerce. Another challenge is to develop parametric
models which are simple enough to be useful in commerce, but at the same time robust and
sophisticated enough to achieve highly accurate predictions of dyeing behavior. This may seem to
be impossible to achieve, but recent work indicates the possibility is real. A barrier to progress in
this area is the perception that this research is too fundamental for industry to support, and
simultaneously too applied to attract traditional basic research support.

)
One need which stands out in the near future for cotton dyeing is salt reduction. At this time, the
salt requirements for fiber reactive dyes, which are the most important dye class for cotton, are 50%
to 100% on weight of goods. It is not unusual to find textile mill effluents with 3000 ppm salt from
cotton dyeing operations. The total quantity of salt discharged from textile dyeing operations may
be on the order of magnitude of 400 million pounds annually. It all becomes waste. The role of salt
in dyeing is to promote dye exhaustion from the dye bath on to the fiber by decreasing the solubility
of dyes in water, and by electrical effects including fiber zeta potential. Reduction of salt in cotton
dyeing processes usually results in lower dyebath exhaustion, and therefore more color in dye
wastewater. Reduction of salt from the current levels of up to 3000 ppm to desired limits of only
250 or less ppm will require significant developments in several areas including machinery,
dyestuffs and dye application processes.

!/")"
At present, the textile industry schedules dyeing production based primarily on delivery times and
cost factors. Two major pollution sources from continuous as well as batch operations are dumping
152
unused portions of mixes and machine cleaning which may be necessary between shades. Machine
cleaners are generally among the most toxic and offensive chemicals used in textile wet processing.
Dye machine cleaning requirements are highly dependent on the sequencing of colors; ideally
grouping colors within chroma families (eg red, yellow, blue), and sequencing from light to dark
and from brighter/brilliant to duller/greyish. At present, ³smart´ scheduling systems which can
minimize machine cleaning are not used for dyehouse scheduling. The need is to schedule dyeing
production in such a way as to reduce pollution by minimizing machine cleaning as well as mix
dumps. The opportunity is fairly straightforward, and the technical barriers to this are minimal.
The barriers are discussed under ³Accurate Information´.
Scheduling improvements are not the only way to reduce machine cleaning requirements. There
re opportunities also to understand fouling and cleaning processes better, and to develop :
Dyeing systems which do not foul machines,
Machine configurations and easy to clean surfaces (eg Teflon(R))
Less toxic and more biodegradable machine cleaners.

% 3"3+
Poor dye work and associated off quality, rework and pollution is often caused by the presence of
upstream processing residues in fabric. The purpose of preparation is to remove these. However,
preparation processes s ometimes are not completely successful in removing all contaminants.
There is a need for dyeing systems which are more robust toward previously added materials (e.g.
spin finishes, agricultural chemicals, sizes, oils, tints, winding emulsions). Such systems could
reduce or eliminate the need for preparation.Using of natural dye with glucose as reducing agent
or using the Air Dyeing technology may be an option. The challenge is somehow to overcome
the proprietary nature of specialties and globally select compatible processing assistants. The
barriers to this are great, but the potential rewards of such an approach would be immense.
There should be some works in this area by a consortium of textile companies and Universities .

+"
Equipment automation is a major focus of textile process improvement over the last 10 years. At a
recent, International Textile Machinery Association exhibition there were less than 100 companies
showing dyeing machinery, but over 150 showing microprocessor controllers, chemical dispensing
153
systems, etc. Automation can produce good results in quality, productivity and pollution
reduction,because routine waste levels are decreased, cleanup is easier, mixes are made more
accurately, and human errors are reduced. On the other hand, the relative importance of
malfunctions and spills,increases. Also there is a tendency for technical supervision to lose contact
with automatedprocesses. When a process is automated, routine maintenance becomes relatively
more important.
Maintenance and supervisory practices which have been used in the past with less automated
systems may not be optimum when automation is installed. The challenge is to determine the
optimum technology of pollution control for automated processes, and to determine how that differs
from current practices.

""/" %"! "
Finishes are applied to provide desirable end use characteristics, as well as to facilitate product
formation (eg cutting and sewing). Proper engineering-oriented fabric designs can eliminate some
or all of the need for finishing, particularly in terms of shrinkage, curling, and sewing lubricants.
Also, it is possible to stabilize properly designed fabrics without chemicals by the use of
mechanical finishes. Much finishing research in recent times has focused on chemical finishing, not
mechanical. The opportunity is to substitute mechanical treatments (e.g.compacting,Sanforizing(R))
for chemical treatments. For these to be successful, it is necessary to correlate three items: fabrics
designs which require less chemical stabilization, finishing machinery whichcan accomplish better
end use performance, and compatible fabric specifications which accommodate the use of
mechanical finishing through proper design of textile assemblies (e.g garment constructions).

"K )"3
Finishing has direct impact on indoor air quality because many finish chemicals contain low
molecular weight, reactive materials (e.g. formaldehyde) which may later be emitted in the
consumer¶s use area. Also, certain finishes (eg soil release, water repellent) change the fiber¶s
critical surface energy and thus alter the sorption/reemission characteristics of fabrics. There is a
potential opportunity to improve indoor air quality by understanding these factors.
Most textiles are combined with other items in the final consumer product, and the combinations
are essentially innumerable. Textile manufacturers do not generally know which components will
154
be combined nor in what manner. For example, an upholstery fabric could be combined with other
fabrics, batting, fiberfill, open or closed cell foams, stiffening innerliners, etc. On the other hand,the
product fabricator generally does not have good information about incompatible combinations in
terms of emissions and sorption/reemissions. This makes product design difficult. Better
information on combinations and synergisms will enhance indoor air quality.

+
The final link in the production chain is the consumer. Opportunities for source reduction include
the development of post consumer recycling of textile products as mentioned above for denim,
installation and maintenance improvements to improve life expectancy of textile products,
installation and use information for improved indoor air quality, products which do not soil or do
not show soil thus require less cleaning solvents and aftermarket care requirements.Discarded
carpets are another potential source for post consumer recycled fiber.
Better information for consumers about environmental impact would require standardization of
tests/terms such as ³biodegradable´.

",, ""()) "2"
In addition to technical needs and opportunities above, there are some business issues which also
deserve comment. Quite a lot of pollution prevention success has been achieved within individual
production units in textile operations. Even greater opportunities exist in pollution reduction
programs which transcend production facility boundaries.A In many cases, the barriers and
challenges are non technical. These will be reviewed here.

"""++"+
The need for global views and better information exchanges are controlled to a large extent by
business priorities and commitments. The technical staff at a particular manufacturing site can
develop and implement procedures for pollution reduction. But the need to develop global views of
manufacturing can only be achieved by a higher level technical understanding across production
unit boundaries. A prime requirement for this is better technical cognizance by those who operate
across boundaries, ie management. Information exchange in this sense is not an end in itself, but
155
only an enabling mechanism for actually understanding the predicament of other manufacturing
stages. The opportunity is to develop special global business relationships among suppliers, various
manufacturing sites and customers to reduce pollution.

;"(
In some cases, wastes are unavoidable so it is important to view waste as a by product or secondary
resource with value. Opportunities to market waste by products should be sought. The business
barrier is that the waste almost always sells for less profit than the primary products, therefore the
sales incentive is low. However, when costs of collection and disposal, as well as potential liability,
are considered the situation may be more profitable than it first seems. There is also a technical
barrier in the sense that many operations are reluctant to buy waste materials as raw material inputs
for quality and safety reasons. With so many disincentives, valuable opportunities may be
overlooked, based on generalized business views about marketing wastes.

+(+"
There is a need for to get more information on product use, installation and combination synergisms
from manufacturing to the customers. Marketing is a critical link in this chain. Some industries do
an excellent job of this. There is a need in textiles to emulate these other successful techniques (eg
technical product bulletins, product specifications). As an example, a chair with upholstery will
include particle board, foam, fiber fill, stiffeners, upholstery, paint, etc all in combination. The
fabricator of the chair does not know how combinations will interact because technical information
bulletins are normally not available on textile fabrics. The manufacturers of each component
usually have no information concerning component combinations.

()"!")
One conflicting goal is dye stability vs. dye waste treatability. There are even more difficult and
hard to define conflicting goals in nontechnical areas. Some of the more prevalent will be reviewed
below.

156
2")3
An often encountered example of nontechnical conflicting goals which inhibit pollution prevention
is the relationship of textiles and municipal sewer systems. One particular dilemma, called
the³water conservation penalty,´ is often encountered. Most cities charge a fee for excess BOD
over a preset concentration limit. This causes textile mills typically to adopt specialty processing
assistants with lower BOD. Textile operations are often encouraged by such BOD surcharge
regulations to make undesirable substitutions of non-degradable (low BOD) surfactants. These tend
to pass through treatment systems and increase aquatic toxicity in the treated effluent.
Toxicity reduction in many cases is frustrated for several reasons :
Difficult substitute chemical evaluation because of poor correlation between labs
Many chemical specialties are proprietary
Technically correct substitutions are punished by regulatory measures (eg. surcharges)
Another example is waste segregation and capture. If there is no way to dispose of captured
hazardous concentrated wastes (which is often the case), then the processor has little incentive to
capture the waste for disposal in its concentrated form. Keeping hazardous waste out of sewers is
often desirable but not rewarded.
Situations such as the above are difficult to resolve with positive results, and attempts to do so
usually develop into little more than long drawn out posturing. The need in this case is a greater
understanding of the impact of regulations by those who write and adopt municipal sewer
ordinances. The opportunity to accomplish genuine pollution prevention could be greatly advanced
by genuine cooperation.

K )"3()"!
Usually, the goals of economic gain and pollution prevention are very compatible, since high
processing efficiency and low waste are essentially two sides of the same coin. Also, high quality
attitude of workers and pollution control through orderly work practices, etc go hand in hand. But
occasionally these goals conflict, and when that happens, the result can be one of the most difficult
situations in which to implement a pollution prevention program.
Typically this happens in very high priced, high quality, low volume specialty manufacturing
situations such as paper-making felts, coated fabrics, offset printing blankets, and high quality
printing. In these cases, the cost of waste is insignificant in terms of product value. Without
157
economic incentives, progress is slow in pollution prevention. Also, the cost of product loss (off
quality, seconds) is so great that conversion efficiency is totally dominant and waste raw materials
have essentially no value compared to product. The opportunity is to study these situations, and
develop incentives and more applicable pollution prevention measures and techniques.

";A("+
Better risk assessment and more realistic waste goals are needed. In many cases, one part of the
risk/benefit balance is clear, but the other part is vague, nebulous or poorly understood. Sometimes
the barrier is poor technical understanding of processes. Another barrier is a cost system which
views waste costs and liabilities as an overhead items, not direct cost items.

+ !
There is a clear need for more technical understanding among textile managers. Cost and liabilities
(civil and criminal) are the responsibility of management in most cases, so it behooves the industry
to develop informed management teams. Strangely, the largest textile universities of the world have
somehow misinterpreted this as a need to include more management in textile curricula by
diminishing technical content of programs. The numbers of graduating textile management majors,
who have minimal quantitative skills and minimal understanding of science, technology and
engineering, far surpasses the numbers of technical graduates. The need is to bring educational
criteria for various textile groups (management, design, engineering, chemistry, technology) closer
together in terms of educational experiences.
In the same vein, there is a need to embody pollution prevention concepts in higher education.
University education provides for interaction of engineers and chemists with managers and
designers in general curricula to foster communications and a common perspective between these
groups. The opportunity is to develop human resources to tackle tough future pollution reduction
problems. The challenge is to create technical environmental competence in graduates. Few if any,
educational institutions have achieved this, but efforts should be underway to implement such
programs.

158
!) "
Human beings have been living in this world for thousands of years after creation. They set their first
footprint towards civilization when they discovered the method of lighting fire.Then they invented
wheel,pottery ;discovered iron, make copper,bronze and various tools.These advancements were
furher enhanced by the Greek and Roman civilization . After that ,the civilization advances toward
the middle age.
The middle age was dominated by the Arabs,who,inspired by the Quran,the message of the
Creator,and his messenger Muhammad(SM),started to spread the light of knowledge throughout the
whole world and taking the responsibility of advancement of human civilization.During this
time,textile industry flourishes by the progress of cottage industry by them.Hand made cloths made
by the Arabs spread out the whole world for its fineness.Maslin of Bengal was created and becomes
famous due to the influence of the ideology of Islam.
After the renessaince of Europe by the French revolution,industrial revolution changes the whole
world.It replaces the Islamic civilization and gives power to the European civilization.The industrial
Revolution was started when James Watt invented the Steam engine.Arkwright invented the thread
cutting machine, which was the first step towards the modern textile industry. Now-a-days,the
modern era of civilization has ameliorated to its highest peak where various types of industries has
flourished.
When industries started functioning from its beginning,disposal of wastes was not taken into serious
account,Solid wastes were dumped into river or lake while liquid wastes or effluents were
discharged into the river indiscriminately.Environmental effects or pollution was not taken into
account as there was no idea about them at that time.
During the time of sixties and seventies,environmental effects of industrial effluents were considered
as a matter of concern .Different types of serious environmental accidents made the governments of
different countries to set up various guidelines and standards to control the pollution.
Now-a-days,environment is not considered as a dump site for effluents,rather protection of it is
taken into serious account. But as Bangladesh can¶t become a full-scale industrially developed country
due to the fuel and energy crisis,environment is not considered as a matter of concern. For example,
many textile industries don¶t have any ETP(Effluent Treatment Plant),which is mandatory.It is hoped
that this scenario would change as early as possible.If the government make steps to create industrial
task force which will help to maintain rules and regulatations strictly,this hope will become true.
159

May the Almighty help the people of Bangladesh to make it as a full-scale industrially developed
country.

160
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162

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1

   

   

K Define industrial wastewater treatment process

K Bleaching: The effluent contains chlorine, hypochlorite and peroxide.

7Knit Fabric Atmospheric Dyeing machine,

7ASME-C High Temperature Fabric Dyeing Machine,

""7 23" "

Some machineries used to manufacture denim are given below :

Application and characteristics of some important types of dyestuffs is described below :

wastes include the raw materials,process chemicals,final products,process intermediates,process by-

The amount of pollution created by wastes is characterized in terms of parameters such as :

iv) TSS(Total suspended solids),

ii)  ?"!/+"!)<3+7 :

BOD can be calculated by:

K Undiluted : Initial DO - Final DO = BOD

K simplicity: no dilution of sample required, no seeding, no blank sample

iii)  ?/+"!)<3 +7

where v 

    

,"( " "!

For example, if a sample has 500 wppm of phenol:

C6H5OH + 7O2 ĺ 6CO2 + 3H2O

iv) ?) ,)"7

TSS( in mg/L)=(dirty pad weight in grams-clean pad weight in grams)/mL of sample*1,000,000

v) ?) ")2)"7

In the aquatic environment,dyes can undergo bio-concentration,ionization,abiotic oxidation, abiotic

A sample of wastewater characteristics of a textile industry is given on the following page :

Other fibers ( °°v  °)

a. The pH varies widely, from 1.9 to 10.4.

In case of Bangladesh,the characteristics are a little bit different. Effluent(wastewater) characteristics

  1 )"3 " B) 

#/1 ",+ "**+

Goals of industrial wastewater treatment should be :

Many industrial-wastewater streams should be pretreated prior to discharge to municipal sewerage

Short description about these processes are given below :

* Process and raw material changes

( r   

Fig : Sedimentation Tank

     

  

%)8 2%)? 7(2%)?7+%""()!!!,9 

Fixed film reactor

Fig : Anaerobic process

When aerobic treatment is to be provided to high concentrations of organics, pure oxygen or

 "$.C.-Schematic of fluidized bed process.

(vi) Ion Exchange,

rr   r r

Fig 1 : Schematic diagram of Electrodylasis Process

Figure : Air Stripping Process.

2) Stabilization of sludges : i) Anaerobic Digestion, ii) Aerobic Digestion,

Table 2: Typical removal rates for ETP components

Figure 1: Block diagram of a model ETP

p p  p p    p p p

" +     Magnesium is present in all natural waters. It is an essential element required in

K Low blood pressure

Other potential effects of long-term cadmium exposure include:

"!;)Nickel released in industrial waste-water ends up in soil or sediment where it strongly

Exposure to cobalt can occur through oral or dermal(skin) routes.Mammals,including humans,are

i) Heart diseases,

:   r !  !  r !  

K Recreation and aesthetics.

:   r !  !  

K Define industrial wastewater treatment process

K Bleaching: The effluent contains chlorine, hypochlorite and peroxide.

7Knit Fabric Atmospheric Dyeing machine,

7ASME-C High Temperature Fabric Dyeing Machine,

""7 23" "

iv) TSS(Total suspended solids),

ii) ?"!/+"!)<3+7 :

K Undiluted : Initial DO - Final DO = BOD

K simplicity: no dilution of sample required, no seeding, no blank sample

iii) ?/+"!)<3 +7

where v

,"( ""!

iv) ?) ,)"7

v) ?) ")2)"7

Other fibers (°°v °)

1 )"3 " B)

#/1 ",+ "+

( r

%)8 2%)? 7(2%)?7+%""()!!!,9

"$.C.-Schematic of fluidized bed process.

rr r r

2) Stabilization of sludges : i) Anaerobic Digestion, ii) Aerobic Digestion,

Figure 1: Block diagram of a model ETP

p p p p p p p

" + Magnesium is present in all natural waters. It is an essential element required in

K Low blood pressure

"!;)Nickel released in industrial waste-water ends up in soil or sediment where it strongly

i) Heart diseases,

: r ! ! r !

K Recreation and aesthetics.

: r ! !

2"7 ((!+,

0 ")""!/(/" 3,+"3+

!"#

Red Leather producing (3), In addition to the above:

j. %'"" %'""

"&% "&%

1 )"3" 2) ("!/""H

p("

r $ % rr

Table-1: standard limits for drinking water

Figure 2: The pH at different stages of the ETP

! )"+/ "!/)"!),"

K Uses 95 percent less water

Ô ! "

4 5 '

+:&&?(:&3&: ; ;( < A2&&,