Treatment of Wastewater from Pulp and Paper Mill using Coagulation and Flocculation
In this work, an effluent sample from a local medium-scale paper mill has been treated using alum as a coagulant and chitosan (natural polymer) as a flocculant. Initially, the dose of alum has been optimized by adjusting the zeta potential to near zero for best coagulation results. The dose of 0.04 g/L was able to merely coagulate and unable to cause sweep flocculation of impurities. Then, at the optimised dose of 0.04 g/L various concentrations of chitosan in the range of 0.1-0.5 g/L were investigated for obtaining maximum flocculation of the suspended impurities. The physico-chemical parameters like pH, total suspended solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), absorbance, and zeta potential were studied for comprehending the flocculation behavior. The observed results exhibited that the maximum flocculation was achieved at the chitosan concentration of 0.3 g/L. At the flocculant concentration of 0.3 g/L, 81% TSS removal and maximum 78% COD were reduced. Moreover, zeta potential value of the collected supernatant was close to zero (–1.49 mV) which showed larger floc formation and easy settleability of the impurities. In all, it can be said that the utilization of chitosan along with alum may be a better option for the treatment of pulp and paper wastewater as well as other similar types of wastewater.