Removal of acrylic acid-containing industrial wastewater by coagulation, flocculation, and adsorption in a mini pilot scale.

Acrylic acid (AA) monomer is an important chemical for the acrylic polymer industry. Wastewater discharged from manufacturing poly-acrylic acid contains a certain amount of unreacted AA, making the wastewater acidic. When discharged directly into sewage, this acidic wastewater exhibits a very high chemical oxygen demand (COD) value. Furthermore, due to the toxicity of AA to aquatic organisms, the AA-containing wastewater needed to be treated accordingly, complying with environmental standards before being discharged into the environment. We prepared two types of industrial wastewater containing AA from wastewater of a commercial poly-acrylic acid plant, and they were treated using coagulation, flocculation and adsorption methods on a laboratory scale with a maximum capacity of 50 L in batch mode. We scaled up the processes to treat industrial wastewater on a mini-pilot scale with a maximum capacity of 1,000 L in batch mode. The experimental results showed that the established mini-pilot scale waste treatment plant had produced an effective waste treatment by conducting coagulation, flocculation, and adsorption process for the removal of acrylic acid from the industrial wastewater, from 8,230 mg/L of COD value to less than 83 mg/L, with over 99.0% removal of AA from the industrial waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]