The City of Winnipeg, MB currently hauls by truck the leachate from the landfill, to be co-treated with the municipal wastewater at a wastewater treatment plant. Pre-treating the leachate with physico-chemical methods would allow for direct discharge to the sewer system, avoiding transportation. The goal of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of different pre-treatment options as well as their impact on a biological nutrient removal system. In Phase I, the four pre-treatment options evaluated were air stripping, chemical coagulation, electro-coagulation and advanced oxidation with sodium ferrate. Chemical coagulation and air stripping reported the best COD and ammonia removal rates, respectively. Phase II evaluated the effectiveness of the selected pre-treatment methods in the response of a biological treatment system. The pre-treatment was successful in allowing complete nitrification by lowering the influent ammonia concentration. However, if the ratio of leachate to wastewater is low enough; pre-treatment may not be needed as the dilution lowers the impact of the leachate’s higher concentrations.

Currently most deinking technologies are dependent upon flotation and dissolved air flotation (DAF) technology in order to separate inkjet ink from fiber and water. Much of this technology is based on ink that is extremely hydrophobic. This made flotation and DAF very easy to use because the ink in the water would very easily move with the air in flotation and be brought to the surface, after which the ink can be skimmed and the pulp can be used. Now that small scale printing has become the norm, there has been a move to high quality, small scale printing. This involves the use of a hydrophilic ink. Hydrophilic ink cannot be easily separated from water and fiber the same way the hydrophobic ink can be. With low concentrations of hydrophilic ink in the process water stream, it can be absorbed into the process but as the hydrophilic ink concentration rises alternative methods will be needed in order to separate inkjet ink from water. One solution is to find a method to effectively increase ink particle size. This will enable the ink particles to be filtered or to have an increase ecacy of removal during flotation. In this thesis, one solution is discussed about how electric field and electric plasma technologies can be used to increase particle size and help purify process water in recycle mills. This plasma treatment can very effectively bring ink particles together so that they may be separated by another method. There are two methods by which this may take place. One is polymerization and the other is electro-coagulation. These processes can work side by side to bring ink particles together. This plasma treatment process creates free radicals by stripping off hydrogen atoms from surrounding organic matter. These free radicals then react with the high alkene bond content within the ink to create a very large covalently bonded molecule. This is the new mechanism that is being investigated in this thesis. The other action that is taking place is electro-coagulation. Plasma treated ink can be filtered out using a cellulose acetate or cellulose nitrate membrane or they can be filtered using paper or fiber glass filters as well. The extent at which these can be filtered out is dependent on the size of the pores of the filter. In this study, it was shown that the plasma treatment was able to clean water with a fairly small amount of energy. It was also found that treatment time and concentration had very little eect on the outcome of the treatment ecacy. One factor that did have an effect was the pH. At very high pH values the process became noticeably less eective. The high pH essentially eliminated the electro-coagulation aspect of the treatment process and also hurt the polymerization aspect as well because of lower amount of hydrogen atoms available for the plasma to create free radicals. A model of the process was used to try to give the reader an idea of the ecacy that the process would have in an industrial scale process. The model assumes that two types of ink particles exist. One is ink that has a radical and another in which the ink does not have a radical. The model also assumes that if ink is at all polymerized, ink is filtered out with the 0.8 micron filter. The model assumes three reactions; initialization, propagation and partial termination. The partial termination is a result from the general chemical structure of ink. Ink has many double bonds in its general structure which makes termination very unlikely to occur, so the model assumes that on average when two radials interact that only one is eliminated. This model is only supposed to give the reader an idea of the ecacy of the process. The numbers provided in the model will change very significantly in a different system. The evidence behind polymerization aspect of the process comes from two main sources. One is the small molecule analysis from methanol after being exposed to the plasma and the other from the plasma being exposed to allyl alcohol. The small molecule analysis shows that the process generates free radicals on organic molecules. Methanol was exposed to the plasma and then the resulting GC/MS analysis showed that 1,2-ethanediol was present, this showed that the electric discharge process was able to create free radicals on organic molecules in the liquid phase. Using a similar process the plasma discharge process was exposed to a mixture of allyl alcohol, water and propanol and water in two separate experiments. The difference between these two molecules is an alkene bond that is between the carbon two and carbon three atoms. The particle size of both samples was then analyzed and it was shown that the solution with allyl alcohol had an average particle size about an order of magnitude larger than the solution with propanol in it. Because of all the evidence discussed here and in the rest of the thesis we believe that the plasma treatment of ink has both polymerization and electro-coagulation aspect. This process could also be a potential solution to the water soluble ink problem that will soon face the recycling industry.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:08:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Paulo Sergio Theodoro.pdf: 1744465 bytes, checksum: 132da5a46d9247da552f8a27ee087fed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-18 / The aim of this work is devoted to reduction of the environmental impact of galvanic industry effluents. An electro-coagulation (EC) laboratory scale system using iron plates electrodes was studied for the removal of organic and inorganic pollutants as a by-product from the treatment of galvanic process based-platining industry. An EC reactor consisting of a 1,5 L conical container and a set of seven firmly assembled iron electrode plates, which were parallelly arranged to each other and electrically operated in mono-polar mode, was built. A 1.0 cm gap between the anode and cathode plates using a non-conducting horizontal support was chosen in order to operate the EC reactor in a low electrical current range. A long, electrical rotating cilindrical rotor, with 2,7cm blades at the end of it, made in non-conducting material, was used to turn mechanically the effluent around the rotor axis during the EC treatment. In addition, a 225 cm2 active electrode surface area was kept during the whole EC experiments. In order to obtain optimal values of reaction time, electrical current, rotor angular velocity, and initial effluent pH, a central composite rotatable design (CCRD) was applied. A wide range of reaction time (10-60 min), electrical current (0.3-3.0 A), rotor angular velocity (50-300 rpm), and initial efluent pH (3-10) were used, performing a total of 28 runs with 24+2x4 axial points and 4 central points. Physico-chemical parameters such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), color, turbidity, total solids, and metals (Cr, Ni, Zn, and Cu) were used as response variables. The measurements of physico-chemical parameter and metal concentration values in non- and treated waste waters were carried out by applying the Standard Methodology and the Synchrotron Radiation X-Ray Fluorescence (SR-TXRF) technique, respectively. Using the Statistica software, a 95%-significance level (p<0.05) of the predicted models and interaction effects between reactor operating variables on response variables were evaluated using 3-D response surface curves and analysis of variance. With the factorial design was obtained the following optimum conditions of the reactor, 35 minutes for the time of electrolysis, 170 rpm for agitation, 2.2 A for the electric current and 6.5 for pH. Under these conditions the removal of color and turbidity reached 100%, another considerable value was the removal of around 90% of COD and total solids. Moreover, a removal of around 99% of Zn and Cu was obtained, whereas for Cr and Ni obtained a removal of 100%. Finally, the results of technical and economic analysis showed the cost obtained by the treatment, indicating clearly that the method of electro-coagulation is very promising for industrial application. / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo remover os poluentes de um efluente de galvanização, de modo a reduzir o impacto ambiental dos efluentes da indústria galvânica. Para a remoção dos poluentes, orgânicos e inorgânicos, gerado nos processos de galvanização foi aplicada a eletrocoagulação (EC) em escala de laboratório utilizando eletrodos de ferro. Foi construído um reator de EC, constituído por um recipiente cônico com capacidade de 1,5 L e um eletrodo de ferro montado firmemente com seis placas de ferro, que foram dispostas paralelamente com uma distância de 1(um) centímetro, operado em modo mono-polar. O sistema de agitação mecânico foi construído com duas pás de geometria cilíndrica de 2,7 cm e uma haste de 31,5 cm feito com material não condutor acoplado em um motor elétrico. Durante o experimento da EC foi utilizada uma área efetiva de 225 cm2 do eletrodo. A fim de obter valores ideais do tempo de eletrolise, corrente elétrica, agitação e pH inicial do efluente, foi aplicado o planejamento estatístico composto central (DCCR) com fatorial 24+2X4 pontos axiais + 4 ponto centrais, totalizando 28 ensaios experimentais. Os valores aplicados as variáveis independentes foram de 0,3 a 3 A para a corrente, de 10 a 60 min. para o tempo de eletrolise, de 3 a 10 para o pH inicial e agitação como valores entre 50 e 300 rpm. Foram utilizadas como variáveis resposta os parâmetros físico químico tais como, a demanda química de oxigênio (DQO), cor, turbidez, Sólidos totais e concentração dos metais Cr, Ni, Zn e Cu.Todos os parâmetros físico-químicos foram determinados através o Método Padrão para análise de água, enquanto que as concentrações dos metais foram determinadas através da técnica de Fluorescência de Raios X por Reflexão Total, (SR-TXRF). Utilizando o software Statistica, com nível de significância de 95% (p <0,05), os modelos preditos e os efeitos de interação entre as variáveis de operação do reator e as variáveis respostas foram avaliados, utilizando as curvas 3-D de superfície de resposta e a análise de variância. Com o planejamento fatorial foi obtido as seguintes condições ótimas de trabalho do reator, 35 minutos para o tempo de eletrolise, 170 rpm para a agitação, 2,2 A para a corrente elétrica e 6,5 para o pH. Nestas condições a remoção da cor e turbidez alcançaram 100%, outro valor considerável foi a remoção em torno de 90% da DQO e sólidos totais. Além disso, uma remoção em torno de 99% de Zn e Cu também foi obtida, enquanto que para o Cr e Ni obteve-se uma remoção de 100%. Finalmente, os resultados da análise técnico-econômica mostraram o baixo custo obtido pelo tratamento, evidenciando claramente que o método da eletrocoagulação é muito promissor para aplicação industrial.