Operation of industrial-scale electron beam wastewater treatment plant

Abstract 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 1 MeV, 40 kW had constructed at Daegu Dyeing Industrial Complex (DDIC) in 1997 for treating 1,000 m 3 per day. Continuous operation of this plant showed the preliminary e-beam treatment reduced bio-treatment time and resulted in more significant decreasing TOC, COD Cr , and BOD 5 . Convinced of the economics and efficiency of the process, a commercial plant with 1 MeV, 400 kW electron accelerator has constructed in 2005. This plant improves the removal efficiency of wastewater with decreasing the retention time in bio-treatment at around 1 kGy. This plant is located on the area of existing wastewater treatment facility in DDIC and the treatment capacity is 10,000 m 3 of wastewater per day. The total construction cost for this plant was USD 4 M and the operation cost has been obtained was not more than USD 1 M per year and about USD 0.3 per each m 3 of wastewater.