فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

The production of cellulose industry products varies significantly, with processes such as Kraft pulping, sulfite pulping, and recycled paper production consuming 20–100 cubic meters of water per ton of paper. The COD/BOD₅ ratio is usually high in cellulose industry wastewater, often exceeding 2.5, indicating a significant presence of non-biodegradable compounds that require advanced treatment methods such as chemical oxidation or adsorption. In this study, several treatment methods were evaluated for wastewater from the cellulose industry, characterized by a COD/BOD5 ratio of 4.6. These methods included physical removal using polyurethane foam, biological removal via activated sludge, and then simultaneous physical-biological treatment both prior to and following pretreatment with perlite. For the analysis of primary and treated effluent, the results related to COD, total suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, electrical conductivity (EC) and pH were investigated. Based on the two-way ANOVA statistical analysis, although no significant differences were observed in turbidity and TSS reduction among the different approaches, the simultaneous physical-biological removal method, following pretreatment with perlite, resulted in a 91% reduction in COD and a 64% reduction in TDS within one day, with these reductions being statistically significant. Moreover, another objective of this study was to demonstrate five successful reuse cycles using the hybrid physical-biological method. Therefore, it can be concluded that the simultaneous physical-biological removal process after pretreatment with perlite, as a low-cost material and environmentally friendly adsorbent, showed effective performance in reducing the pollution indexes of Kimia Wood Factory effluents.