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In a pulp and paper mill, the highly colored wastewater generated from the pulping process requires pretreatment before the biological purification process because of the presence of recalcitrant lingo-cellulosic compounds. For the present study, the black liquor was prepared in the laboratory by digesting the sugarcane baggase using the soda process, which was further diluted before use in the experimental study. The wastewater [pH = 13.0, chemical oxygen demand (COD) = 5, 120 mg/L] was treated by two processes: wet oxidation (WO) (both noncatalytic and catalytic) and coagulation. Catalytic WO (CWO) experiments were conducted in the presence of 60% CuO/40% CeO2 at temperatures ranging from 130 to 170 degrees C and total pressures of 0.95 MPa. During the CWO process, the maximum COD and color removals were found to be approximately 51 and 71%, respectively. Coagulation followed by noncatalytic WO exhibited the best performance with overall COD and color reductions of approximately 77.5 and 87%, respectively. The biodegradability of the wastewater was increased to 0.60 and 0.96 after CWO and combined treatment, respectively, from an initial value of 0.22. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)EE.1943-7870.0000611. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.

The objectives of the tasks of Agrotechnology & Food Innovation (formerly ATO) in the project are: to determine at laboratory level the best conditions for producing high-yield pulps from whole jute for utilisation in wood containing papers; to test the potential of using recommended enzyme recipes in both extruder and refiner processes in terms of pulp quality, chemicals and energy consumption, brightness and production cost; to evaluate the potential of a micro-biological pre-treatment with selected strains of fungi; to establish process conditions for pilot confirmatory trials.