Decolorisation of Reactive Orange using Coupled Oxidation Process

Increasing urbanization and industrialization have resulted in a dramatic increase in the volume of wastewater. Global water pollution scenario suggests that nearly 1.5 billion people lack safe drinking water and at least 5 million deaths are attributed to waterborne diseases such as cholera, hepatitis every year. The textile industry plays an important role in Indian economy. The textile dyeing wastewaters are highly coloured due to the release of unfixed dye molecules in the dyeing process. The traditional treatment techniques applied in textile wastewaters, such as coagulation/flocculation, membrane separation (ultrafiltratation, reverse osmosis) or elimination by activated carbon adsorption, only do a phase transfer of the pollutant, and biological treatment is also not a complete solution to the problem. So Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP's), like ozonation and ozonation combined with hydrogen peroxide and UV source, could be a good option to treat and eliminate textile dyes. Advanced Oxidation Processes are the one that offers a highly reactive, non-specific oxidant namely hydroxyl radicals (HO•), capable of destroying wide range of organic pollutants in water and wastewater. In the present study, colour removal on synthetic textile dyeing wastewater (SWW) Reactive orange was performed using ozone and ozone based AOPs such as O₃/UV, O₃/H₂O₂ and O₃/UV/H₂O₂. The decolorization of dye has been investigated in terms of change in color by measuring absorbance.