Reuse of Beverage Industry Wastewater in Textile Dyeing after its Treatment with Ozone

Abstract

This investigation evaluated a novel idea of reusing wastewater generated during the washing and rinsing stages of soft drink bottling at a beverage factory located in Raiwind, Pakistan. Once the wastewater was collected from the beverage factory, it first underwent ozone (O₃) treatment using a bench scale laboratory set-up and then reused in cotton dyeing process. Experimental results showed that 70, 78, 82 and 98% colour removal efficiencies were achieved in a composite wastewater sample at 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes of O₃ treatment, respectively. Turbidity (NTU), COD (mg/L) and pH values were found to be decreasing with increasing ozone exposure time. At the end of ozone treatment, the treated wastewater was used in cotton dyeing process which is also a water-intensive process similar to beverage industry. Finally, the fabrics dyed in O₃ treated wastewater were subjected to quality testing in terms of washing, rubbing and colour difference properties. This study concluded that ozonation was an efficient method for the treatment of wastewater from beverage industry and treated water could be successfully reused in cotton dyeing without deteriorating the coloration quality. This method proved to be an eco-friendly process because it did not consume any fresh water and used only discarded wastewater, hence reducing pollution load significantly.