Study of catalyzed ozonation for advanced treatment of pulp and paper mill effluents

Ozonation and catalytic ozonation (TOCCATA® process) were used as tertiary treatments of wastewaters from three different pulp and paper mills. Laboratory batch experiments were conducted to assess the efficiency of each oxidation system for removal of organic matter. The investigations measured ozone consumption rate, variations in chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC), suspended solids (SS) and molecular weight distribution with contact time. For conventional ozonation, ozone consumption rate was dependent on the nature of the effluent. Organic matter elimination occurred both by oxidation and precipitation. Precipitation played a major role on TOC removal varying with the effluent, and was responsible for production of high final SS concentrations. However, the effluent type did not affect the ozone consumption rate for TOCCATA®-catalyzed reactions. Using TOCCATA®, it was shown that organic matter was removed through steady conversion of organic carbon to carbon dioxide. Finally the two oxidation systems were compared with respect to their impact on molecular weight distribution. A total removal of the two initial fractions of compounds (high and low molecular weights) was observed with two effluents. With the third effluent, only the initial fraction of low molecular weight compounds was removed by the two oxidizing systems. The results showed that ozonation and TOCCATA®-catalyzed ozonation could achieve removals of COD of 36–76%. Depending on the effluent type, the amount of ozone consumed per gram of COD removed was lower for conventional or for catalytic ozonation.