Eco-friendly solutions for pollution prevention and textile wastewater treatment

Abstract

The effluents resulted from the textile finishing generate the following pollution problems for the environment: concentration of pollutants in the discharged wastewater that leads to an increase of the main wastewater quality indicators: pH, matters in suspension, COD, BOD, chloride, sulphide, detergents, nitrogen; pollution of groundwater by a concentration of polluting minerals; pollution of soil in the area where textile and leather companies operate; pollution of natural receptors and the compelling of riverside industries to search for other clean water sources; persistence of dyes that are difficult to degrade in the natural receptors; impact on aquatic flora and fauna; decrease in photosynthesis due to water coloration; pollution of ground waters with dissolved solid substances; increase of alkalinity and of the content of mineral, organic substances and of soluble substances. All these problems can be minimized by adopting preventive measures and by pollution monitoring. Both pollution prevention solutions and new environmental technologies applied in the finishing textile processes are presented in this paper. There have been realized comparative studies between the conventional technologies, ecological technologies of textile finishing and advanced treatment technologies of wastewater. The impact of these technologies on the quality of wastewater has been studied with the demonstration of efficiency, through: decreasing of the amount of indicators, cost cutting of the treatment for each m3 of water, decreasing of the sludge quantity.