Colour RemovalColoured substances can be derived from many compounds and their release into the environment pose serious environmental problems. The removal of colour, especially from the textile wastewaters is a difficult task, there is no economically attractive treatment that can effectively treat dyes, most of them use chemical treatment method. The threat behind the release of coloured effluents is due to high content of dye chemicals and their breakdown products may be even more toxic and/or mutagenic to life. In addition, large amounts of water are being released by textile industries resulting in high water requirement.
The government has included colour standard for effluent in 2009 which will have a serious implication on many industries discharging coloured effluent.
A Technofund project is being conducted to provide a cost-effective and environmental friendly treatment process to remove colour to enable textile industries (and as well other industries producing coloured wastewater) to comply with the effluent discharge. The project is a collaboration between PMT and SIRIM ( as well as 3 Univ. – UPM, UTM, UKM)
In this project, an innovative bioreactor system that does not use any chemical for its operation is being developed. This technology is the only system that can claim 100% biological bioremediation using selected microorganism to degrade colour. Previous study at pilot scale has shown that this Anaerobic-Aerobic Biofilm Reactor System has the ability to treat high strength wastewater from the textile industry. The bioreactors are seeded with specially developed dye-degrading microbial inocula. Both the bioreactors will be filled with cosmo balls inert media to enhance the concentration of biomass through entrapment in the macrostructure. The cosmo balls used in the system have been proven to be effective carrier materials which function as devices to retain the biomass. The biofilm that will be formed consists of extracellular polymeric substances produced by microorganisms upon growth on solid surfaces in aqueous environment.
This system (called TexBiox) will be installed at Ramatex Textile Industrial Sdn. Bhd. who will provide the space for the location and to supply the real textile wastewater for treatment.
