Removal of Acetic Acid from Dimethyl Terephthalate Manufacturing Wastewater with Ion Exchange

Wastewater from dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) manufacturing is treated with weak base anionic resin to remove acetic acid, which causes inhibition during conventional biological treatment. The experimental results show that the ion exchange process can be an effective approach for the pretreatment of DMT wastewater. At the resin dose of 70 g, the removal rate of acetic acid is found to be 86.5% at the equilibrium state. Some equilibrium and kinetic models are applied to the data obtained from the experiments. Among other models, the Freundlich isotherm is found to be the best‐fitting model with a correlation coefficient ( R 2 ) value of 0.981. In addition, the pseudo‐second order kinetic model describes the process better than the other kinetic models. The equilibrium and kinetic constants are calculated and the interactions between the acetate, the resin, and the process conditions are determined.