Journal of Environmental Biology

Influence of drying of biosludge on organochlorine

compounds from pulp and paper industry

Author Details

S. Gupta

Thapar Centre for Industrial Research and Development, Paper Mill Campus,

Yamuna Nagar - 135 001, India

M. Purwar

Thapar Centre for Industrial Research and Development, Paper Mill Campus,

Yamuna Nagar - 135 001, India

S.K. Chakrabarti

Thapar Centre for Industrial Research and Development, Paper Mill Campus, ???

Yamuna Nagar - 135 001, India

Satnam Singh

(Corresponding author)

School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Thapar University, Patiala - 147 004, India

e-mail: ssingh@thapar.edu

Publication Data

Paper received:

29 September 2010

Revised received:

25 January 2011

Re-revised received:

25 February 2011

Accepted:

07 March 2011

Abstract

Pulp and paper industry is one of the major sources of man-made generation of organochlorine compounds. During biological treatment of wastewater, part of organochlorine compounds is discharged with treated effluent and part is retained on biomass and disposed of as waste activated sludge. Due to presence of these compounds, the disposal of biosludge from pulp and paper industry has become an issue. The estimation of adsorbable organic halogen (AOX) compounds after drying and grinding resulted in 49% lower concentration of AOX due to stripping of purgeable compounds. These purgeable compounds are not released at 60^oC in aqueous medium during estimation of purgeable organic halogen (POX) compounds. Dispersion of sludge by sonication overcomes the loss of POX compounds and results in higher concentration of AOX compounds. The drying of biosludge samples at 45, 100 ^oC and in presence of sun light resulted in 20.1, 49.0 and 29.6% removal of purgeable AOX compounds, respectively. The lab scale sorption study using dichloromethane (as volatile organochlorine compound) reveal that biosludge from pulp and paper industry is a good adsorbent of volatile organochlorine compounds and results in poor release of these compounds during estimation of POX compounds.

Key words

Adsorbable organic halogen, Organochlorine, Purgeable organic halogen, Biosludge, Pulp and paper industry

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