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Recycling of wastewaters of textile dyeing industriesusing advanced treatment technology and
cost analysis—Case studies
K. Ranganathan ∗, K. Karunagaran, D.C. SharmaCentral Pollution Control Board, Southern Zonal Office, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560 086, India
Received 30 January 2006; received in revised form 22 June 2006; accepted 22 June 2006Available online 26 July 2006
Abstract
Textile dyeing industries in Tirupur and Karur of Tamil Nadu (India) usually discharge effluentsranging between 80 and 200 m3/t of production. Dyeing is performed either by conventional winchprocess or by advanced soft flow reactor process. Hypochlorite, the commonly used bleaching chem-ical is being gradually phased out by alkaline hydrogen peroxide solution that generates less effluentand fewer solids in the effluents. Coloring of yarn/cloth takes place in the presence of high concentra-tion of sodium chloride or sodium sulphate (25–75 kg/m3) in dye solutions. Dye bath wastewaters andwash waters are the process effluents of dyeing industry which are collected separately or togetherand follow the advanced treatment for maximum recycling of recovered waters.
Dye bath water after treating by sand and nanofiltrations (NF), the permeate is used in process fordye bath preparation and the reject of about 20–30% is sent to multi effect evaporator (MEE)/solarevaporation pond (SEP). Wash waters treated using a sequence of physicochemical and biological unitprocesses are passed into two stages reverse osmosis (RO) membrane systems and then the permeate isreused in the processes. The rejects about 15–20% of the inlet volume is subject either to nanofiltrationfor salt recovery or sent to evaporators. The final rejects from nanofilter systems is directed to multieffect evaporator system where condensed waters are recovered. The removal of total dissolved solids(TDS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), chloride and sodium are in the range of 80–97%, 91–97%,
Abbreviations: INR, Indian rupees (one USD equal to INR 44); CPCB, Central Pollution Control Board;APHA, American Public Health Association; RO, reverse osmosis; NF, nanofiltration; MEE, multiple effectevaporators; TDS, total dissolved solids; BOD, biochemical oxygen demand; COD, chemical oxygen demand;SAR, sodium absorption ratio; TH, total hardness
Next to food the second basic needs of man ‘cloth’ is supplied by processing of naturaland synthetic fibers in the industries called textiles. Increased population and modernizedcivilization trend gave rise to blooming of textile sectors in India. An estimate shows thattextiles account for 14% of India’s industrial production and around 27% of its exportearnings. India is the second largest producer of cotton yarn and silk and third largestproducer of cotton and cellulose fiber (Report of Business India, 2004). The total productionof yarn during the year 2003–2004 was 3051 kt (Annual Report of Ministry of Textiles,2004). There are about 10,000 garment manufacturers and 2100 bleaching and dyeingindustries in India. Majority are concentrated at Tirupur and Karur in Tamil Nadu, Ludiyanain Punjab and Surat in Gujarat. The processes followed in textile industries are spinning offiber to yarn, sizing to improve stiffness, scouring, kiering and desizing to remove excesssizing materials, bleaching to remove pectin and wax from the yarn and fabric and coloringand printing to provide desired color and design to the cloth. Dyeing is a combined process ofbleaching and coloring, which generates voluminous quantities of wastewaters and in turncauses environmental degradation. The effluents consist of high TDS, sodium, chloride,sulphate, hardness and carcinogenic dye ingredients. High BOD effluents are generatedfrom the sizing and desizing processes and treated by conventional anaerobic and aerobicbiological methods (Tchobanoglous and Burton, 1995).
Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu is well known for cotton production and also called asManchester of Southern India. Tirupur, one of the towns in Coimbatore District is located atthe bank of river Noyyal, a tributary to river Cauvery. The quality of Noyyal river water andclimatic condition of Tirupur has been ideal for dyeing operation of yarn and fabric sincelong time. Presently there are 712 dyeing and bleaching industries in Tirupur that generate87,000 m3/d of wastewater. Out of this a total of 281 industries are attached with commoneffluent treatment plants (CETP) and others are having their individual effluent treatmentplants. Presently adopted technology is able to remove the color and other organic impuritiesto the stipulated standards but failed to arrest the inorganic contaminants. Continuanceof effluent discharges has caused gross damages to the nearby aquatic systems receivingbody like Orathupalayam dam located at the down stream of river Noyyal and as suchthe water quality has become unfit for irrigation. The reservoir water’s TDS, chloride andsodium were reported as high as 5054, 2869 and 1620 mg/L, respectively (Central PollutionControl Board, 2005). Also the concentration of dissolved solids in the ground and riverwater is reported in the range of 5000–7000 mg/L i.e. almost ten times higher than thedesirable drinking water standard (Indian Standard, 1991). A study carried out by Rajaguru
et al. (2002) indicates that the ground water in the Tirupur area is also contaminated withsubstances capable of inducing DNA damage in human cells. One more town Karur locatedat the bank of river Amaravathy, another tributary to river Cauvery is also concentrated with600 bleaching and dyeing industries. Advanced treatment technologies are imperative toprotect the water resources in these areas.
Membrane technology for treatment of dye house effluents was studied by Bucklay(1992) and reported 95% color removal. Vandevivere et al. (1998) and Ciardelli et al.(2000) have reviewed and studied successful application of membrane technology in textilewet processing industries. In view of the above impacts of the dyeing effluents on theenvironment, the industries in Tirupur and Karur are also forced to adopt technology leadingtowards zero discharge systems. There are 20 dyeing industries that have already installedeffluent treatment technologies with advanced techniques and attained zero discharge. Fourindustries adopted such technologies are extensively studied and the results are discussedin this paper.
2. Materials and methods
Four dyeing units namely M/s. Sivasakthi Textile Processors, Tirupur, M/s. RennaisanceCreations Processing Division, Tirupur, M/s. Leeds Spinning Mills (P) Ltd., Tirupur andM/s. Karur Amaravathy Textiles Industry, Karur were visited and information on manu-facturing process, production status and wastewater quantity were collected. Waste watersamples from the dye bath collection tank and wash water collection tanks, intermediatepoints and at the outlets of effluent treatment plants were collected and analyzed at mobileas well as stationary laboratory using standard methods. Eight hourly composite and grabsamples were collected for the first two units and other two units, respectively. The sampleswere preserved and analyzed as per the standard methods (APHA, 1995; CPCB, 2001).
Percent sodium and sodium absorption ratio (SAR) values were calculated using thefollowing formulas:
percent sodium = concentration of Na × 100
concentrations of Na + K + Ca + Mg
sodium absorption ratio (SAR) = concentration of Na√(concentration of Ca + concentration of Mg)/2
where the concentrations of the ions are expressed in mequiv./L. All the chemicals usedwere of analytical and laboratory grades.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. M/s. Sivasakthi textile processors
M/s. Sivasakthi Textile Processors engaged in dyeing of yarn (cotton and polyester)is located at Mangalam, Tirupur. Six numbers of soft flow reactors (batch process) with
different capacities are used for dyeing including wetting, bleaching, neutralizing, washing,coloring, washing, etc. In the reactors, 1 t of cotton yarn requires 10 m3 of water whereas 1 tof polyester yarn consumes only 4 m3 in each steps. Dye bath solution requires dyes, alkaliand sodium salt in the process. Quantity of salt (sodium chloride) used usually dependson the requirement of color shade. The total quantity of yarn/fabric processed in the unitis 1500–2000 kg/d and the volume of effluent generated is of the order of 100–200 m3/d.Effluents are segregated into dye bath wastewater and wash water and treatment is effectedaccordingly.
Wash water is collected in holding tanks and pumped to primary treatment unit (lime andferrous sulfate slurries are flash-mixed with effluent and allowed for settling). Followingprimary treatment the effluent is carried to pressure sand filter, iron removal filter, ionexchange filter and reverse osmosis (RO) system. Double stage RO system (each with sixmembranes) with spiral wound membrane is in operation. Pump pressure is maintained inthe range of 21.2–28.2 kg/cm2. Rejects of first RO is sent to second RO and the final reject(20%) is sent to MEE. Condensate water is recycled in the cleaning operations. Outlet with100 g/L solid content is allowed for solar evaporation and the combined permeate is used inthe process. Dye bath water is collected in a separate tank and are subject to nanofiltrationafter following pre-filtration. Total reject of about 30% is sent for multi effect evaporationand solar evaporation systems. The permeate is used for preparation of dye bath solution.The characteristics of the raw effluents, intermediate effluents and permeate are presentedin the Table 1. The low hardness of permeate is an added advantage in the process. Permeateof NF filtration contains 4.8% of salts that is mixed with more salts and used in the process.Salt recovery from the dye bath alone has 50% returns.
M/s Renaissance Creations is located at Kuppandampalayam, Tirupur. Dyeing of clothand garment of cotton is practiced in the unit. The both Winch and soft flow reactors(batch process) are used for dyeing. The process includes wetting, bleaching, neutralizing,washing, coloring, washing, etc. Dye bath solution requires dyes, alkali and sodium salt(sulphate and chloride) in the process. Quantity of the product is 3000 kg/d and the volumeof effluent generated is 600 m3/d. Effluent is segregated into dye bath wastewater and washwater, which is generally in the ratio of 1:10.
Wash water equalized in a holding tank is subject to primary treatment by flash mixingwith lime and ferrous sulfate and are allowed for settling. Primary treatment is followed bythe secondary treatments such as biological oxidation through Tricking filters, chlorination,activated carbon bed and pressure sand filter before entering into reverse osmosis (RO)system. Double stage RO is followed with a feed water flow rate of 27.5 m3/h. High pressurepumps used to feed the filtered water to the first array of the RO and the reject of first ROto second RO and the final reject (12–15%) is sent for multi effect evaporator. Permeate isused in the process after passing through degasser tower.
Whereas dye bath water is collected in a separate tank and allowed for lime and ferroussulfate flocculation to remove the color. These light color effluents mixed with the rejectsof RO are sent to evaporation system (MEE). Condensed water is recycled in the processand the rejects are diverted to crystallizing system for recovery of Glaubers salt which
Table 1Characteristics of effluents of M/s. Shivasakthi Textile Processors, Tirupur
Note: BDL, below detection limit; –, not analysed.
is used in the process. The characteristics of effluents are presented in the Table 2. Thequality of permeate shows that is suitable for dye house processing. The high TDS andchloride contents in the permeate indicates that the RO membrane has to be either cleanedor replaced.
3.3. M/s. Leeds spinning mills Ltd
The industry which process 4000 kg of yarn and fabric per day generates 3000 m3/d ofwash water and 30 m3/d of dye bath water. The wash effluents and bath effluent are collectedseparately and treatment is effected. The dye bath effluents are subject to nanofiltration aftergravitational settling. NF modules are extremely sensitive to fouling by colloidal materialsand polymers. It can be used to separate fiber reactive dyes and cationic dyes from thesalt. The permeate collected contains merely NaCl that is used in the dyeing process. Therejects are diverted to solar evaporation ponds. The wash waters after treating with limeand ferric chloride is passed to sand filtration followed by iron removing cartridges. It isthen subjected to double stage reverse osmosis system and 80% of permeate is used inthe industrial process and the reject are sent for nanofiltration and solar evaporation. Solarevaporation pond is designed keeping water evaporation rate of 4 mm/d. To minimize thearea requirement for solar evaporation, the industry has proposed to install one more ROsystem in conjunction with treatment plant. The results of treated and untreated waters arepresented in the Table 3. The permeate has shown the lowest TDS concentration of 212 mg/Lout of the studied industries.
Due to scarcity of fresh water in the area, the unit had purchased 400 m3/d of waterthrough tankers. After installation of the advanced water recovery system, the unit is pur-chasing only 3–4 m3/d.
3.4. M/s. Karur Amaravathi textiles industry
The unit located at the bank of river Amaravathy processes yarn and fabric dyeing withproduction capacity of 4000 kg/d and generates effluent of about 400 m3/d. Both wash watersand dye bath waters are collected together in a tank and subject to advanced treatment. Thereis no system for BOD, color and other impurities removal. The effluent is sent directly to thedisc type RO membrane after settling. There are four modules in the RO system wherein therejects of first module is sent to second module and so on. Permeates from the each moduleare collected together and recycled back in the industrial processes. The rejects of the lastmodule are subject to nanofiltration and permeate is used for making dye solution and thereject is sent for solar evaporation. The characteristics of effluent, inlet to RO, individualpermeate, combined permeate and rejects are shown in the Table 4. The BOD of permeateis high due to no prerequisite of primary and secondary treatment of wastewaters.
3.5. Comparison of the ROs performance in the studied textile dyeing units
The characteristics such as TDS, chloride, percent sodium and SAR show that theuntreated and primarily treated wastewaters are unfit for irrigation and their discharge intoriver may further aggravate the problem. Therefore, the advanced treatments such as reverse
Table 2Characteristics of effluents of M/s. Renaissance Creations, Tirupur
Fig. 1. Removal of pollutants using advanced treatment process in different textile dyeing units.
osmosis and/or nanofiltration separation technologies are essentially used to remove theinorganic (mainly) and organic constituents from aqueous solution and non-aqueous solu-tion by membrane (polyamide). The principle followed in all the units are same where asdifferent module such as disc type module and spiral wound module membrane are housedin the RO system. Before charging into RO membrane it is important to remove impuritiessuch as suspended and colloidal impurities of organic and inorganic compounds and dis-solved polyvalent ions to extend the life of the membrane. Almost all the systems attainedcomplete removal of suspended solids. Fig. 1 shows the percent removal of major pollutantssuch as BOD, COD, TDS, total hardness, sulphate and chloride. The industry referred at3.4 has disc type membrane module showed better performance in terms of TDS and otherions removal. The life of the membrane would be reduced due to the absence of preliminarytreatment. The water regenerated using the advanced technology is found good quality andcould be directly used in the dyeing process. A typical schematic diagram of the effluenttreatment plant provided with primary, secondary and advanced treatment technologies forrecycling of wastewater is exhibited in the Fig. 2.
To extend life of RO membranes, flushing the membrane periodically with clean waterand occasional chemical cleaning is required. The pH around 5–6 is desirable to preventboth hydrolysis of membrane and precipitation of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). A modelflow chart of zero discharge scheme for the textile dyeing units is shown in the Fig. 3.Solar evaporation is followed in the units referred above namely M/s. Sivasakthi TextileProcessors and M/s. Leeds Spinning Mills (P) Ltd. Solar evaporation pond is lined with aconcrete layer and arrangements are made to avoid ground water infiltration. An area ofabout 1000 m2 is required per 4 m3 of wastes for solar evaporation. The final dried salts arepacked in polythene bags for final disposal.
3.6. Cost analysis of the water recycling process
Wastewater treatment plant installation and commissioning cost is in the range of INR40–100 lacs, INR 100–200 lacs and INR 200–300 lacs for small (below 300 m3/d), medium
Fig. 2. Typical schematic diagram of advanced wastewater treatment technology for recycling of textile dyeingwastewaters.
(300–600 m3/d) and large (above 600 m3/d) scale textile dying industries. The maintenanceand operation cost is as below:
Chemical cost INR 7–8 m−3
Power cost INR 2–3 m−3
Sludge handling INR 0.75–1 m−3
Manpower INR 1–2 m−3
Filters/cartridges (spares) INR 5–10 m−3
RO/NF membrane maintenance INR 15–20 m−3
Interest and principal paid on the loan (one USD is equal to INR 44) INR 40–50 m−3
Total expenses incurred for the water treatment and recovery is about INR 80/m3 of theeffluent. Due to non-availability of good quality water for dyeing processes in Tirupur, itis purchased from villages 15 km away from the towns and hence the cost of the water isapproximately INR 100/m3 including transportation. Hence, the technology is also eco-nomically viable in the studied area.
Fig. 3. Flow diagram of conceptual zero discharge in textile dyeing unit using advanced wastewater treatment.
The bottlenecks in adopting the technology are high cost of operation for MEE andmaintenance of RO membrane module. Multi effect evaporation is a costly system forconcentration of the effluents before crystallization. It requires more maintenance in termsof consuming more fuel and an average of INR 400 is required per m3 of rejects. Therecovered salt has poor purity and market value of salt is also very less i.e. INR 4 perkg. When the availability of land has become constraint, the MEE would be preferable.A common MEE set-up as joint ventures may be an economical recommendation. Properpreliminary treatments should be followed to reduce the maintenance cost of RO membrane.
4. Conclusion
The study shows the recycling of treated wastewater and zero wastewater dischargeconcept are found technically feasible and economically viable in the textile dying industrieslocated in the area of Tirupur and Karur, Tamil Nadu. The average percent removals of BOD,COD, TDS, Sodium and Chloride in the advanced treatment technology are in the rangeof 88–98%, 91–97%, 80–97%, 96% and 76–97%, respectively. The most attracting partof water recovered from these membranes is its extremely low hardness, which is alwaysdemanded in textile sector for an improved finish and better quality dyeing. The treatmentand maintenance cost INR 80/m3 is cheaper than the water cost INR 100/m3 in Tirupur andKarur areas. Common facility for Multistage Evaporator would be economical.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Dr. V. Rajagopalan, Chairman, Central Pollution ControlBoard, Delhi for his keen encouragement, Mr. Sunnel Dave, Environmental Engineer forvaluable suggestions and Laboratory members of CPCB, Bangalore for their kind co-operation in sample analysis.
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