https://doi.org/10.15255/KUI.2014.011
Published: Kem. Ind. 64 (5-6) (2015) 247−254
Paper reference number: KUI-11/2014
Paper type: Original scientific paper
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Chemical Compounds Recovery in Carboxymethyl Cellulose Wastewater Treatment

P. H. Rao, W. Q. Zhang, W. Yao, A. Y. Zhu, J. L. Xia, Y. F. Tan, Y. J. Li and T. Z. Liu

Abstract

Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is a kind of cellulose ether widely used in industrial production. CMC wastewater usually have high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and salinity (>10 %), which result from organic and inorganic by-products during CMC production. It is significant that the wastewater is pretreated to decrease salinity and recover valuable organics before biochemical methods are employed. In this paper, distillation-extraction method was used to pretreat CMC wastewater and recover valuable chemical compounds from wastewater (Fig. 1). Initial pH of CMC wastewater was adjusted to different values (6.5, 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, 12.0) before distillation to study the effect of pH on by-products in wastewater. By-products obtained from CMC wastewater were extracted and characterized by NMR, XRD and TGA. Distillate obtained from distillation of wastewater was treated using biological method, i.e., upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB)-contact oxidation process. Domestic sewage and flushing water from manufacturing shop was added into distillate to decrease initial COD and increase nutrients such as N, P, K. Experimental results showed that by-products extracted from CMC wastewater mainly include ethoxyacetic acid and NaCl, which were confirmed by NMR and XRD (Fig. 2). TGA results of by-products indicated that the content of NaCl in inorganic by-products reached 96 %. Increasing initial pH value of CMC wastewater might significantly raise the purity of ethoxyacetic acid in organic by-products. UASB-contact oxidation process showed a good resistance to shock loading. Results of 45-day continuous operation revealed that CODCr of final effluent might be controlled below 500 mg l^–1 and meet Shanghai Industrial Wastewater Discharge Standard (CODCr < 500 mg l^–1), which indicated that the treatment process in this study was appropriate to treat distillate of wastewater from CMC production industry.

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Keywords

ethoxyacetic acid, carboxymethyl cellulose, wastewater treatment, recovery