Biological treatment of industrial wastewater from post-combustion carbon capture

Amine -based post -combustion capture is a technologically viable process for sequestering carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. However, the resulting wastewater generally contains high concentrations of organic carbon, sulfates, amines, and amine derivatives. This research set forth to determine the efficacy of a biological treatment approach consisting of nitrification, denitrification, and sulfate reduction to decrease these contaminants. Two systems were considered: the first implemented the aerobic, anoxic, and anaerobic processes into three separate bioreactors; the second implemented each of these processes into a single bioreactor. The average removal efficiencies of chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, ammonia, and sulfate were 97%, 79%, 85%, >99%, and 16% for the three -stage system, and 95%, 88%, 88%, >99%, and 10% for the single -stage system. Extending the anaerobic phase by 12 h increased the sulfate removal to 25% and 39%, respectively. These results demonstrate the efficacy of biological treatment for carbon capture wastewater.