ACTIVATED SLUDGE WITH POWDERED ACTIVATED CARBON
TREAMENT OF A DYES AND PIGMENTS
PROCESSING WASTEWATER
Glenn M. Shaul, Physical Scientist
Industrial Environmental Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, Ohio 45268
Michael W. Barnett, Graduate Student
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio 45221
Timothy W. Neiheisel, Aquatic Biologist
Environmental Monitoring and Support Laboratory
Kenneth A. Dostal, Environmental Engineer
Industrial Environmental Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, Ohio 45268
INTRODUCTION
For the past thirteen years the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of
Research and Development (ORD) has had a major program on the development and demonstration
of more cost-effective methods of controlling pollution from industrial wastewaters. Initially this program was concerned with the control of conventional pollutants such as suspended solids (SS), oil and
grease, and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). During the past five years the emphasis has changed
from the control of conventional pollutants to the control of specific toxic pollutants and toxicity as
measured by aquatic bioassays. The overall objective of this program has been the generation of data
which would assist EPA in the development of technology-based industrial effluent limitations
guidelines and standards.
Since 1975, the Industrial Environmental Research Laboratory in Cincinnati, Ohio (IERL-Ci) has
had the responsibility for conducting both in-house and extramural studies on a number of major industrial categories including: food processing, pulp and paper production, leather tanning and
finishing, organic and inorganic chemicals production, as well as nonferrous metals processing. One
of the in-house studies, initiated in July 1981, was designed to evaluate the treatability of a dyes and
pigments processing wastewater using an activated sludge (AS) process both with and without the
addition of powdered activated carbon (PAC).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study was conducted at EPA's Test and Evaluation (T&E) Facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. Four
continuous-flow activated sludge (AS) pilot plants operated in parallel were used from July 1981 to
January 1983. A detailed description of these pilot plants was outlined in a previous paper [1].
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