Advancements in laundry wastewater treatment for reuse: a review

Abstract

Laundry related activities produce huge quantity of wastewater that is very rich in lint, dyes, surfactants, and detergents. The large amount of laundry wastewater (LWW) is generated by extensive human activities. LWW needs to be treated in order to tackle the challenging problem of water pollution and to accomplish water sustainability. To achieve this success, LWW can be reused for several purposes such as irrigation, construction activities, vehicle washing etc. However, there are several challenges in the reclamation of LWW like effective handling of the wastewater and meeting the regulatory criteria. Based on the literature review it seems that a single treatment process is not sufficient to treat LWW up to acceptable reuse standards. To that end, different treatment chains have been proposed: i) hybrid processes combining membrane filtration with adsorption; ii) advanced oxidation process using ultraviolet (UV) and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂); iii) coagulation-flocculation combined with sand filtration; iv) combination of ozonation process, adsorption, and ultrafiltration (UF). This review paper discusses the selection of suitable treatment technology depends on several factors: i) a well-designed equipment, ii) cost-effectiveness of treatment method and iii) desired characteristics of the treated water. The review paper also presents solutions for treatment and reclamation of LWW.

Keywords:

• Laundry wastewater (LWW)
• treatment technology
• reclamation
• reuse
• sustainability

Data availability statement

Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) by CREATE-TEDGIEER program (Grant number-498017-2017). We would also like to acknowledge the financial support from our industrial partner VEOS_water (Grant number-RDCPJ 531664-18).