Wastewater Types, Characteristics and Treatment Strategies

One of the most important issues in recent times is the remediation of wastewater discharged from different industries. Several of the growing economies have been investing heavily to reduce the discharged waste content for economic and environmental sustainability. The wastewater when discharged into natural water bodies harms the flora and fauna of the surrounding environment, which in turn disrupts the ecosystem and affects the food chain. It also increases and possesses a variety of health risks to human beings. To eliminate the potential threats, a critical analysis of the past research and upcoming remediation technologies is necessary. Over the years, a lot of advancements have been made to curb the disruption of the natural ecology from effluent discharges by different industries like the leather industry wastewater, Rice mill wastewater, pharmaceutical industry wastewater and Coke Oven wastewater. The common characterization techniques that are employed in all of them are to measure the COD and BOD levels, pH, odor, TSS, organic and inorganic materials. Subsequently, the common technologies that are in use to treat these wastewaters are mainly physicochemical treatments like adsorption, electrocoagulation/ flocculation, nanofiltration, Fenton’s oxidation or biological treatments like aerobic/anaerobic microbial degradation. An important requirement is to understand the situation currently prevalent in wastewater treatment to develop better and advanced methods for increased efficiency and waste removal. The aim of this chapter is to give a detailed account on the composition, characterization, and treatment strategies of the discharged effluent to enhance the knowledge of available resources and instigate ideas of future improvements.