Combined treatment of retting flax wastewater using Fenton oxidation and granular activated carbon

The process of retting flax produces a huge amount of wastewater which is characterized with bad unpleasant smell and high concentration of organic materials. Treatment of such waste had always been difficult because of the presence of refractory organic pollutants such as lignin. In this study, treatment of retting wastewater was carried out using combined system of Fenton oxidation process followed by adsorption on granular activated carbon (GAC). The effects of operating condition on Fenton oxidation process such as hydrogen peroxide and iron concentration were investigated. In addition, kinetic study of the adsorption process was elaborated. The obtained results indicated that degradation of organic matters follows a pseudo-first order reaction with regression coefficient of 0.98. The kinetic model suggested that the rate of reaction was highly affected by the concentration of hydrogen peroxide. Moreover, the results indicated that the treatment module was very efficient in removing the organic and inorganic pollutants. The average percentage removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solid (TSS), oil, and grease was 98.60%, 86.60%, and 94.22% with residual values of 44, 20, and 5 mg/L, respectively. The treated effluent was complying with the National Regulatory Standards for wastewater discharge into surface water or reuse in the retting process.