Treatment of Textile Wastewater by Foam Flotation

Foam flotation (adsorptive bubble separation) experiments in a packed bed reactor were conducted to investigate the efficiency of this process in reducing the color, turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the textile wastewater obtained from a dyeing and finishing plant. Both hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HTA) and sodium lauryl sulfate (NLS) were tested as a potential collector agent for foam flotation. Experimental runs have been extensively performed to determine the effects of the wastewater pH, air flow rate and amount of collector agent employed on the nephalematic turbidity unit (NTU) and color reductions and COD removal. The experimental results were utilized to determine the optimum operating conditions of those variables. Chemical coagulation using polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and organic polymer was also tested to show whether this method has complementary effect on enhancing the treatment efficiency of foam flotation.