Treatment of oily wastewater from cold-rolling mill through coagulation and integrated membrane processes

The feasibility of applying coagulation-integrated microfiltration (MF) as a pretreatment for an ultrafiltration (UF) feed in oily wastewater treatment was investigated. The effects of different coagulants on oil removal rates from wastewater were studied. The maximum oil removal rate of 82% was obtained after coagulation with 130 mg/L of polyaluminium chloride (PAC). UF flux reached 95 L/(m(2).h) with coagulation-integrated MF as pretreatment. This value was 2.5 times higher than that flux obtained without pretreatment. The value of UF flux increased as the transmembrane pressure (TMP) and cross-flow velocity (CFV) of the UF module increased. UF flux gradually increased when TMP and CFV exceeded 0.4 MPa and 3 m/s, respectively, because of concentration polarization and membrane fouling stabilization. Chemical oxygen demand reduction and oil removal rate reached 95.2% and 98.5%, respectively, during integrated membrane processing with a PAC concentration of 130 mg/L, TMP of 0.4 MPa, and CFV of 3 m/s for UF. In addition, sequentially cleaning the fouling membrane with NaOH and HNO3 aqueous solutions caused UF flux to recover to 90%. These encouraging results suggested that the hybrid integrated membrane process-based coagulation and MF + UF are effective approaches for oily wastewater treatment.