Pilot-scale textile effluent treatment plant developed

The ability of the technology to generate oxidizing radicals in-situ, significantly reduced the reliance on external oxidizing agents.

A textile and apparel industry, located in the Hanumakonda district, of Telangana has been able treat its textile wastewater at a very reasonable cost. Thanks to an energy-efficient and eco-friendly technology developed using, biosurfactants and membrane technology.

Textile effluent is heavily contaminated with pollutants such as dyes, dissolved solids, suspended solids and toxic metals and there is a need for robust, efficient technologies to treat such effluent before they are discharged into the environment.

NIT Warangal along with Prime Textiles, Rampur located in Kakatiya Mega Textile Park (KMTP), with support from IMPRINT, a joint effort of MoE and SERB, developed a pilot-scale textile effluent treatment plant using biosurfactants (BS), cavitation (a process in which pressure variations in a liquid can in a short period of time cause countless small cavities to form and then implode--C), and membrane (M) technology.

Initially, the scientists Prof. Shirish H. Sonawane, NIT Warangal, Dr. Murali Mohan Seepana, NIT Warangal, Dr. Ajey Kumar Patel, NIT Warangal and Dr. Mousumi Debnath, Manipal University Jaipur (MUJ) developed individual systems at the laboratories and the process parameters were optimized. The biosurfactant to be used in Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) was extracted from microorganisms isolated from textile effluent and textile effluent contaminated soil by MUJ.

The use of BS in MBBR helped in dye removal and was effective in reducing operational time and cost (with respect to other biological treatment methods). Cavitation (C), an advanced oxidation process (AOP), aided in reducing installation cost as well as reducing carbon footprint.

The ability of the technology to generate oxidizing radicals in-situ, significantly reduced the reliance on external oxidizing agents. On the other hand, modifying the membrane (M) surface using boehmite sol synthesized using sol-gel process, decreased the pore size from micro-scale to nano-scale and led to a significant improvement in its performance. After optimizing individual systems, a pilot-scale setup has been set up at the Prime Textiles premises.

(With Inputs from PIB)