Performance of acid mine drainage sludge as an innovative catalytic oxidation source for treating vehicle-washing wastewater

This study introduces iron sludge recovered from acid mine drainage (AMD) waste, as advanced oxidation processes, that is, AMD/H2O2(Fenton's reagent) to treat vehicle-washing wastewater. Vehicle-washing wastewater was collected from car washing facility in West Virginia, USA, and subjected for laboratory-scale batch experiments. Response surface methodological analysis was chosen to optimize the parametric conditions of the Fenton's system. A 15-level of quadratic Box-Behnken design model was applied via response surface methodology to evaluate the effects and interactions of the system variables. The optimized system variables were attained at pH 4.0 using 92 and 354 mg/L of AMD and H(2)O(2)concentrations, respectively, to achieve the maximum predicted organics removals of 91.4%. Analysis of variance, which was applied for statistical data analysis, showed the significant of the quadratic models for treatment. The linear correlation between the total organic carbon (TOC) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), with sufficient accuracy, is providing the possibility of estimating COD from TOC values. Finally, the results showed that the reaction is endothermic, non-spontaneous in nature and follows the second-order reaction kinetics rate. The results of this work signify the importance of using iron from waste effluents for treating wastewater.

Automated summary

This study introduced the use of iron sludge recovered from acid mine drainage (AMD) waste, as advanced oxidation processes, for treating vehicle-washing wastewater using AMD/H2O2 (Fenton's reagent). The optimized system variables in this study achieved a high predicted organics removal rate, showcasing the effectiveness of using iron from waste effluents for wastewater treatment.