Feasibility study of the treatment of aniline hypersaline wastewater with a combined adsorption/bio-regeneration system

Treatment of aniline hypersaline wastewater with a combined physical–biological method was investigated in this study. This method consisted of the physical adsorption of aniline from hypersaline effluents by resins and the biodegradation of the adsorbate and the regeneration of the adsorbent in the subsequent stage. The XDA-1 resin, selected from five commercial products, could separate aniline from salt effectively. The adsorption rate increased with the increase of salinity. Biodegradation of the aniline desorbed from the exhausted resin could be realized easily without salt interference. During the repetitive six combined operations, the percentage regeneration (PR) and NaCl separation efficiency (SE) of XDA-1 were 92.3% and 98.3%, respectively. No obvious difference could be found in pore size distribution between virgin XDA-1 and samples repeated six regeneration cycles. The PR of specific surface area and total pore volume of the bio-regenerated XDA-1 resin were 94.5% and 97.2%, respectively. It was indicated that XDA-1 could be bio-regenerated successfully and the regenerated resin could be re-utilized.