Treatment of a simulated textile wastewater containing the Reactive Orange 16 azo dye by a combination of ozonation and moving-bed biofilm reactor: evaluating the performance, toxicity, and oxidation by-products

In this study, an aqueous solution containing the azo dye Reactive Orange 16 (RO16) was subjected to two sequential treatment processes, namely: ozonation and biological treatment in a moving-bed biofilm reactor (MBBR). The most appropriate ozonation pretreatment conditions for the biological process and the toxicity of the by-products resulting from RO16 ozone oxidation were evaluated. The results showed that more than 97 % of color removal from the dye solutions with RO16 concentrations ranging from 25 to 100 mg/L was observed in 5 min of ozone exposure. However, the maximum total organic carbon removal achieved by ozonation was only 48 %, indicating partial mineralization of the dye. Eleven intermediate organic compounds resulting from ozone treatment of RO16 solution were identified by LC/MS analyses at different contact times. The toxicity of the dye-containing solution decreased after 2 min of ozonation, but increased at longer contact times. The results further demonstrated that the ozonolysis products did not affect the performance of the subsequent MBBR, which achieved an average chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonium removal of 93 +/- 1 and 97 +/- 2 %, respectively. A second MBBR system fed with non-ozonated dye-containing wastewater was run in parallel for comparison purposes. This reactor also showed an appreciable COD (90 +/- 1 %) and ammonium removal (97 +/- 2 %), but was not effective in removing color, which remained practically invariable over the system. The use of short ozonation times (5 min) and a compact MBBR has shown to be effective for the treatment of the simulated textile wastewater containing the RO16 azo dye.