(188g) Aerobic SBR Processes In Treating PTA Manufacturing Wastewater

  Purified terephthalic acid(PTA) is among the top 50 chemicals manufactured in the world. As one of the most important raw material, PTA was used to make many synthetic products, especially polyester fiber. PTA manufacturing wastewater is a kind of wastewater difficult to treat due to the high level of organic contamination and the complex components in it. The aerobic sequencing batch reactor activated sludge process(SBR) was studied for the technological feasibilities in treating PTA manufacturing wastewater.

 It was showed that the simulated PTA manufacturing wastewater could be rapidly treated by the aerobic SBR process, when initial TA concentration was lower than 1500mg L^-1, the aerobic SBR system removed more than 90% of COD after only 4 hours treatment. Aerobic SBR system displayed a higher degradation activity when aeration rate, settling time and feeding way were all in the proper conditions. COD removal efficiency could reach 96.0% after just aerating for 10 hours when initial TA concentration was 4000mg L^-1. However, COD in the effluent reached a limitation of 235 mg L^-1 which was not allowed to discharge directly, because COD in the effluent had to be lower than 150 mg L^-1 to prevent the pollution of environment. In the presence of higher initial TA concentration, COD in the effluent and surplus biomass production each cycle were both higher, indicating that the aerobic SBR process should be improved because of the high organic concentration of PTA manufacturing wastewater.

The hydrolytic-aerobic recycling SBR process was more efficiently in treating PTA manufacturing wastewater than the other intermittent biological processes, so this process may have broad applications in the future.