Operation of industrial-scale electron beam wastewater treatment plant

Textile dyeing processes consume large amount of water, steam and discharge filthy and colored wastewater. A pilot scale e-beam plant with an electron accelerator of 1MeV, 40kW had constructed at Daegu Dyeing Industrial Complex (DDIC) in 1997 for treating 1,000m3 per day. Continuous operation of this plant showed the preliminary e-beam treatment reduced bio-treatment time and resulted in more significant decreasing TOC, CODCr, and BOD5. Convinced of the economics and efficiency of the process, a commercial plant with 1MeV, 400kW electron accelerator has constructed in 2005. This plant improves the removal efficiency of wastewater with decreasing the retention time in bio-treatment at around 1kGy. This plant is located on the area of existing wastewater treatment facility in DDIC and the treatment capacity is 10,000m3 of wastewater per day. The total construction cost for this plant was USD 4M and the operation cost has been obtained was not more than USD 1M per year and about USD 0.3 per each m3 of wastewater. ► Commercial e-beam plant to treat textile dyeing wastewater has constructed. ► Electron accelerator of 1MeV, 400kW was installed. ► This plant treats 10,000 m3/d of wastewater with 1kGy. ► It showed improvement in removal efficiency with low cost (USD 0.3/m3)