Food Industrial Effluent Treatment with Oxygen and Ozone Using Activated Carbon for Catalytic Oxidation

ABSTRACT

A catalytic oxidation treatment to remove coloration and chemical oxygen demand (COD) in an effluent from a food industry was carried out using oxygen and ozone as oxidizing agents and activated carbon as a catalytic. Different experiments of oxidation were conducted using 25, 50 and 100 mL of activated carbon bed to treat 100 mL of sample and constant flow of oxygen 7.2 g/min and ozone 0.034 mg/min, maintaining initial pH of industrial effluent. Almost a complete coloration removal and COD reduction of the sample was achieved for catalytic processes; however, time of treatment and agent oxidant doses were different in each case. According to volume of activated carbon beds, ozone doses for discoloration and COD removal were 8.5, 2 and 1.7 mg/L, whereas the oxygen doses were 2860, 770 and 500 g/L, respectively. Consequently, to eliminate the color in the industrial effluent, the dose of oxygen was higher than that of ozone. In addition, the oxidation agents promoted the regeneration of activated carbon, showing that its activity is declined after 60 cycles of effluent treatment with ozone, whereas with oxygen treatment, the total depletion was observed in 18 cycles. In turn, single adsorption showed activated carbon depletion in 5 cycles of effluent treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Activated carbon
• catalyst
• food dyes
• oxidation treatment
• oxygen
• ozone

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a food industry company of the State of Mexico, which provided the effluents under study, installations, and valuable information. We would also like to thank the Tecnológico Nacional de México as Funding Source. Grant number: 17371.23-P.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions statement and ethics

Conceptualization, C.M., Methodology, C.M; Formal analysis, C.M.; V. D-B. Investigation, M. V-A, V. D-B.; I.M-G.; Resources, C.M. Writing – original draft preparation, M. V-A.; I. M-G. Writing-review and editing, C.M.; funding acquisition, C.M.

Data availability statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Tecnológico Nacional de México [17371.23-P].