Study on high efficiency treatment of isophytol wastewater by micro-electrolysis combined with steam-air stripping

The production process of chemical vitamin E intermediate is complex and involves a variety of long-chain organic compounds which are difficult to degrade. Furthermore, a large amount of NH4Cl is used as a solvent in the process of production. Therefore, the wastewater from isophytol production has the characteristics of high chemical oxygen demand (COD), high ammonia nitrogen, high salt and low biodegradability, which will increase the treatment load of the subsequent sewage treatment plant and affect the stable operation of the wastewater treatment plant. In this study, micro-electrolysis combined with steam-air stripping process was used to pretreat the wastewater from isophytol production in order to improve its biodegradability. The experimental results showed that the average COD and NH3-N removal rate of this process could reach more than 93.5% and 97.8%, respectively. Furthermore, the destructive experimental results show that the two processes both can maintain high stability. The combined process also recovers ammonia from wastewater in the form of ammonium sulfate. Therefore, the combined process has the characteristics of high treatment efficiency, economic and environmental protection, and is very suitable for the effective treatment of isophytol production wastewater.