Operation of industrial-scale electron beam wastewater treatment plant

Textile dyeing processes consume large amount of water, steam and discharge filthy and colored wastewater. A pilot scale e-beam plant with an electron accelerator of 1 MeV, 40 kW had constructed at Daegu Dyeing Industrial Complex (DDIC) in 1997 for treating 1,000 m(3) per day. Continuous operation of this plant showed the preliminary e-beam treatment reduced bio-treatment time and resulted in more significant decreasing TOC, CODcr, and BOD5. Convinced of the economics and efficiency of the process, a commercial plant with 1 MeV, 400 kW electron accelerator has constructed in 2005. This plant improves the removal efficiency of wastewater with decreasing the retention time in bio-treatment at around 1 kGy. This plant is located on the area of existing wastewater treatment facility in DDIC and the treatment capacity is 10,000 m(3) of wastewater per day. The total construction cost for this plant was USD 4 M and the operation cost has been obtained was not more than USD 1 M per year and about USD 0.3 per each m(3) of wastewater. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.