Characteristics of developed granules containing selected decolourising bacteria for the degradation of textile wastewater

Textile wastewater, one of the most polluted industrial effluents, generally contains substantial amount of dyes and chemicals that will cause increase in the COD, colour and toxicity of receiving water bodies if not properly treated. Current treatment methods include chemical and biological processes; the efficiency of the biological treatment method however, remains uncertain since the discharged effluent is still highly coloured. In this study, granules consisting mixed culture of decolourising bacteria were developed and the physical and morphological characteristics were determined. After the sixth week of development, the granules were 3-10 mm in diameter, having good settling property with settling velocity of 70 m/h, sludge volume index (SVI) of 90 to 130 mL/g, integrity coefficient of 3.7, and density of 66 g/l. Their abilities to treat sterilised raw textile wastewater were evaluated based on the removal efficiencies of COD (initial ranging from 200 to 3,000 mg/L), colour (initial ranging from 450 to 2000 ADMI) of sterilised raw textile wastewater with pH from 6.8 to 9.4. Using a sequential anaerobic-aerobic treatment cycle with hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24 h, maximum removal of colour and COD achieved was 90% and 80%, respectively.