Electron beam radiation coupled to flocculation for advanced treatment of coking and dyeing wastewater: Performance and synergistic effect

Advanced treatment of industrial wastewater is a tough problem in the field of wastewater treatment. In this study, the electron beam radiation coupled to flocculation process was firstly developed and investigated for the advanced treatment of coking and dyeing wastewater. Three different coupled processes were studied, i.e. electron beam radiation followed by flocculation process (EBF), flocculation followed by electron beam radiation process (FEB), and simultaneous electron beam radiation and flocculation process (SEBF). It was found that different processes had various performances in the removal of targeted organic pollutants. For humic acid, FEB with poly aluminum ferric chloride (PAFC) as flocculants showed the best synergistic effect at 10 kGy, in which the removal of humic acid was 95.2%, while SEBF exhibited the inhibition effect under all the conditions. For Rhodamine B, EBF with PAFC had the highest synergistic effect at 10 kGy, in which the removal of Rhodamine B was 87.4%. For phenol, SEBF with PAFC as flocculants showed the highest synergistic effect at 10 kGy, in which the phenol removal was 64.2%. The transformation of organic pollutants, such as the polymerization was the main reason for the synergistic effect of EBF, while the dissolved iron ions and the enhanced oxidation made major contribution to the synergistic effect of FEB, and the structural change of flocculants and the transformation of organic pollutants during the process of electron beam radiation was mainly responsible for the synergistic effect of SEBF. EBF showed better performance in COD removal for actual coking and dyeing wastewater than FEB, indicating that electron beam radiation could promote the flocculation effect. Considering the operation procedure and treatment cost comprehensively, EBF with PAFC is recommended for the advanced treatment of actual coking and dyeing wastewater. This study could provide a novel and effective method for the advanced treatment of industrial wastewater.