Textile Waste Water
Water scarcity has become an issue worldwide due to various factors such as rapid population growth and booming industrialization. With growing demand of water resources, the traditional methods of wastewater treatment should be improved to
supply a better quality of effluents. The stringent environmental standards imposed by many countries in response to the increase of water consumption are also an important challenge to be faced in the wastewater treatment. Since many years, industrial working in the field of the wet textile processing have implemented different treatments for the wastewater purification. The simplest way to improve the effluents quality is the application of a physio-chemical treatment which can achieve the full color removal, although the organic matter removal is insufficient to accomplish the current regulations.
The biological treatment with activated sludge provides a high efficiency of organic matter removal, whereas water decolonization is in general insufficient. In this case, a tertiary treatment to remove color is required. In the recent years, there has been an increasing tendency towards the application of membrane treatments for the removal of organic pollutants in wastewater. In particular, the combination of membrane technology and activated sludge biological plants is nowadays an attractive option for the textile wastewater treatment which enables the reuse of the treated effluents. This chapter includes an overview of the main technologies for the textile wastewater treatment, from the conventional physio-chemical and biological treatment to the more recent membrane bioreactors. Their efficiency and feasibility are discussed as well as the possibility of reuse.