Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2 (2014) 21112119

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Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jece

Combined chemical coagulationocculation/ultraviolet photolysis

treatment for anionic surfactants in laundry wastewater
E.L. Terechova a,b , Guoquan Zhang a, *, Jie Chen a , N.A. Sosnina c, Fenglin Yang a
a
Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian
University of Technology, 2 Linggong Road, Dalian 116024, China
b
Hydraulics and Water Supply Department, Far Eastern State Transport University, Serishev St., 47, Khabarovsk 680021, Russia
c
Chemistry and Ecology Department, Far Eastern State Transport University, Serishev St., 47, Khabarovsk 680021, Russia

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 24 May 2014
Received in revised form 31 July 2014
Accepted 10 September 2014

In this work, a combined chemical coagulationocculation/ultraviolet photolysis process was used to

separate and oxidative degrade the linar alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), an anionic surfactant in laundry
wastewater, aiming at making the efuent dischargeable with suitable characteristics. Mineral ash, ZnCl2,
and Praestol-650 (P-650) were chosen as the coagulant-sorbent, the complex former and the cationic
high-molecular occulants, respectively. The dosages of three components were optimized through the
response surface methodology (RSM). The optimum parameters values obtained from RSM were further
proved by a successful parallel trial with the actual laundry wastewater. Results showed that the
maximum LAS removal efciency of 71.26% and 74.58% were achieved for the self-made LAS wastewater
and the actual laundry wastewater when the dosages of ZnCl2, ash and P-650 was 29.54, 1936.35 and
196.38 mg/L, respectively. The effect of solution pH in LAS ultraviolet photolysis process was also
investigated. Results indicated that the alkaline medium is benecial to LAS photolysis removal. These
results support the applicability of the combined chemical coagulationocculation/ultraviolet
photolysis process for LAS removal due to its efcient and rapids treatment rate, high adsorption and
extraction capacity, and acceptable catalytic oxidation ability using Zn2+ salts and mineral ash as specic
coagulant and Praestol-650 as cationic high-molecular occulant.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Anionic surfactants
Coagulationocculation
Ultraviolet photolysis
Response surface methodology
Laundry wastewater

Introduction
Surfactants used as surface-active matters can effectively
decrease the surface tension of liquids. Those surface activities
of surfactants derive from the amphiphilic structures that posses
both hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts in one molecule [1].
Synthetic surfactants are widely used in many industrial
applications such as metal processing, textile, food, pharmaceuticals and paper industries [2]. Surfactants are can be
classied into four groups depending on the charge of the
hydrophilic part: nonionic (0), anionic (
), cationic (+) and
zwitterionic () [3].
Linar alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) is a typical anionic surfactant, which are extensively used in household products, detergents,
personal care products, industrial processes and pesticide formulations [4,5]. It can also be found in the sewages of many enterprises

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 411 84706172; fax: +86 411 84706328.
E-mail address: guoquanz@126.com (G. Zhang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2014.09.011
2213-3437/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

including laundries, car washing facilities and railway transport

facilities [6]. LAS were referred as water pollutants of the third group
of dispersibility of Kylskys classication of water impurities
(diameter of particles from 1 to 10 nm) [6]. It is reported that in
domestic sewage, the LAS concentration may vary from 1 to 18 mg/L
[7], and the concentration in laundry wastewater may vary from
17 to 1024 mg/L [8]. Under low concentration they exist in water in
the form of molecules and ions, forming the homogeneous systems.
Under high concentration and in the presence of particulate, nedispersed pollutants and oil products, however, they form colloid
structures and act simultaneously as the stabilizers of emulsions and
suspensions.
Due to the biotoxicity and non-biodegradability, wastewaters
containing surfactants need to be treated before discharging into
the aquatic environment, in terms of public and environmental
health [2]. Generally, LAS are also considered as the dangerous and
undesirable substances in water body. Even accumulated in small
amounts (0.82.0 mg/L), LAS would produce a strong toxic effect
on ora and fauna, destroy the organoleptic property and prevent
the self-purication process of water body [9]. On the other hand, a

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E.L. Terechova et al. / Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2 (2014) 21112119

Table 1
Chemical components of the mineral ash.
Component

SiO2

Al2O3

Fe2O3

MgO

CaO

SO3

TiO2

MnO

K2O

Na2O

Content (wt%)

50.64

37.57

5.15

0.80

1.72

0.30

1.15

0.068

0.67

0.44

study of the possibility for wastewater reuse is essential because of

its large quantities in the laundering process of industrial
laundries. Laundry wastewater possesses the potential for
reclamation and reuse. Such reclamation and reuse of laundry
discharge is important to save water supply and signicantly
improve urban environments [10]. In this context, many technologies such as adsorption, ion exchange, membrane ltration,
precipitation, coagulation, occulation, and oxidation treatments
have been proposed to treat LAS in laundry wastewater [921].
Among the currently used techniques, precipitation/coagulation
had received considerable attention due to its high removal
efciency and low-cost. A great number of liquid and solid organic/
inorganic coagulants and occulants are available [11,1618]. In
addition, the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) such as
ozonation, photocatalysis, Fenton and ultraviolet irradiation
[11,15,1921] had been widely utilized to improve the removal
efciency of LAS. However, it is difcult to meet with the national
environmental quality standard of China (GB 3838-88) after
treated by the conventional methods. Also, it is difcult to
develop a single and an effective treatment method due to the
diversity and the unique physicochemical properties of the laundry
wastewater.
In present work, a combined chemical coagulationocculation/photolysis process was proposed. Mineral ash, ZnCl2 and
Praestol-650 (P-650) were chosen as coagulant-sorbent, complex
precursor and cationic high molecular occulants, respectively.
The dosages of the three components were optimized through the
response surface methodology (RSM). The novel mechanism of
coagulationocculation process was also proposed. In the
photolytic process, the inuence of the solution pH was
investigated and the products after photolysis were also analyzed
by gas chromatography. Results indicated that the combined
chemical coagulationocculation/ultraviolet photolysis process is
an environmentally friendly strategy for laundry wastewater
treatment.
Material and methods

Experimental procedures
Coagulationocculation experiments
Coagulationocculation experiments were carried out in a
classical jar test apparatus. ZnCl2, mineral ash and P-650 were
added successively into 400 mL wastewater. Then, the wastewater
was vigorously mixed for 5 min at 200 rpm, followed by slow
mixing for 30 min at 30 rpm, and allowed to settle for 30 min.
Finally, the supernatant was taken out for measurement and
subsequent ultraviolet photolysis. After the optimization of three
components dosages through RSM, three parallel coagulation
occulation/ultraviolet photolysis experiments were carried out
with the actual laundry wastewater obtained from the launderette
in Dalian University of Technology, China. The initial composition
of the laundry wastewater is shown in Table 2.
Response surface methodology
The dosages of ZnCl2, ash and Praestol-650 were optimized by
the RSM in order to obtain the maximal removal efciency of AS. A
BoxBehnken design [21] was chosen to evaluate the combined
effect of three independent variables. The contents of ZnCl2, ash
and Praestol-650 were termed as X1,X2 and X3, respectively. The
minimum and maximum ranges of variables were investigated and
the full experimental plan with respect to their values is listed in
Table 2. The coded values of the three independent variables
together with the responses are shown in Table 3. An empirical
second-order polynomial model for three factors was in the
following form:
Y i b0

n
X
i1

bi X i

n
X

bii X 2i

i1

n
X

bij X i X j e

(1)

i<1

where Y is residual contents of LAS (mg/L); Xi the variable

parameters in codes, bo, bi, bii and bij the parameters of the
regression model; e the random error associated with this measure
[24]. Design-Expert software was used to attain the coefcient
parameters estimated by the multiple linear regression analysis,
generating response surface contour plots and analyzing the data
collected by the performing analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Chemicals and wastewater samples

In RSM experiments, the simulated anionic surfacant wastewater was self-made using LAS (alkyl benzene sulfonates,
R-C6H4SO3H (322 g/mol), where R refers to the alkyl chain
(hydrophobic region) ranging from 4 to 10 carbon atoms and
another part (hydrophilic region) corresponding to a sulfonated
aromatic ring). Owing to the high concentration of LAS, the laundry
wastewater was generally diluted to obtain an inuent LAS
concentration of approximately 12.014.0 mg/L, below the inhibitory value of 50 mg/L in biochemical treatment processes [22]. So,
the initial concentration of LAS in this work was selected as
13.8 mg/L, which is at concentration below its critical micelle
concentration (CMC) of 2.0 mM [23]. Mineral ash obtained from
Beihai thermal power plant, Dalian, was used as the coagulantsorbent and its composition was listed in Table 1. ZnCl2
and Praestol-650 were chosen as complex precursor and cationic
high molecular occulants, respectively. Solution pH was adjusted
by using sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide.

Photolysis experiments
Ultraviolet photolysis experiments were carried out using a high
pressure mercury lamp (quartz tube, power supply 220 V/36 W,
frequency = 50 Hz, l = 253.7 nm) as the light source at room
temperature. The distance between the lamp and wastewater
was 5 cm. The volume of wastewater was 200 mL, the width of the
wastewater layer was 3 cm and the irradiation time was 30 min.

Table 2
The initial composition of the laundry wastewater.
Laundry wastewater ingredients

Concentration (mg/L)

LAS
Suspension substances/optical density
Oil products (oil P)
Chemical oxygen demand (COD)
pH

19.68
126.6/0.76
3.70
280
9.09.5

E.L. Terechova et al. / Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2 (2014) 21112119

Table 3
Level and code of variables for RSM.
Variables

Coded

ZnCl2 (mg/L)
Ash (mg/L)
Praestol-650 (mg/L)

X1
X2
X3

2113

Table 4
The design of RSM and its actual and predicted values.
Levels

1

4
0
30

17
1000
115

30
2000
200

Analytical determinations
The determination of LAS was conducted by the liquid
uorescent spectrophotometry method (RF 5301 PC, Shimadzu).
The excitation wavelength is 261 nm and the emission wavelength
is 315 nm. Firstly, LAS ions with the uorescent stain (acridine
yellow) were extracted from sample using chloroform, and then
the concentration of LAS was measured according to the
uorescence intensity of the extract. The zeta potential value of
the complex aggregate was measured by MALVERN ZETASIZER
(3000HS, UK). The suspension substances in actual laundry
wastewater was measured by the gravimetric method, where
the wastewater sample rstly passed through 0.45 mm lter
membrane and then dried to constant weight at 103105  C. The
optical density and COD of the actual laundry wastewater were
determined by LS117 (Linshang Technology Ltd., China) and
microwave digestion method. The oil products in wastewater
was also measured by the gravimetric method, where the water
sample was rstly acidized by sulfuric acid, then it was extracted
by petroleum ether, and nally weighting the extractants after the
petroleum ether was evaporated. an p=-meter HANNA 213 was
used to determinate the solution p=. The presence of ketones
(acetones), alcohols, fatty acid (E2E10) and (E8E22) was
determined by the gas chromatography (GC, HP 5890). The
detector was the ame ionization detector (FID), and the carrier
gas was nitrogen. The substances concentrations were determined
according to the chromatographic peak height as compared with
the standard peak.
Results and discussion
Optimization of coagulationocculation experiments
LAS are present as both micelle and ion-molecular states in
actual wastewater [2]. Taking into consideration the fact that the
colloid particles of LAS is negatively charged, thus Praestol650 which contains the positively charged ions (Fig. 1), was chosen
as the cationic occulants due to the occurrence of ion-ion
interaction. The partial hydrolyzations of the coagulant components can efcient adsorb the charged particles either in colloid
state or dissolved in water environment. Therefore, the industrial
mineral ash from the thermoelectrical plant was used as a solid
coagulant. On the other hand, in order to reduce the occulants

Fig. 1. The molecule structure of Praestol-650.

Number

X1

X2

X3

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

17
4
30
17
30
17
30
17
4
4
17
30
17
17
4
17
17

1000
2000
2000
0
1000
2000
0
2000
1000
1000
1000
1000
1000
1000
0
1000
0

115
115
115
200
30
200
115
30
30
200
115
200
115
115
115
115
30

R (%)
Experimental

Predicated

48.53
36.94
60.75
65.57
44.65
62.97
55.26
34.87
23.02
56.34
48.53
69.6
48.53
48.53
42.93
48.53
33.86

48.53
36.96
60.46
65.24
44.61
62.91
55.24
35.2
22.67
56.38
48.53
69.95
48.53
48.53
43.22
48.53
33.92

consumption and improve the treatment quality, it is necessary

introducing a coagulant to destruct the stable dispersed systems.
Based on the classical colloidal chemistry theory, it is also
necessary to convert LAS from the ion-molecular state into
insoluble complexes by using the heavy metal compounds. Thus,
ZnCl2 was chosen as the complex precursor, since the stable
insoluble complexes with LAS would generate when Zn(II) was
added.
RSM was used to optimize the addition of ZnCl2, ash and
Praestol-650 in coagulationocculation process and the removal
efciency of LAS was shown in Table 4. The coefcients of the
response function for the dependent variable were determined by
correlating the experimental data, which was expressed by the
second-order polynomial equation:
Y 16:51 0:73X 1
4:15  10
3 X 2 0:21X 3 2:21
 10
4 X 1 X 2
1:89  10
3 X 1 X 3
1:06  10
5X 2 X 3
1:41
 10
3 X 21 6:78  10
7 X 22 1:52  10
5 X 23

(2)

where Y is the removal efciency of LAS.

Statistical testing of the model was performed with the Fishers
statistical test for analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of
ANOVA for LAS removal efciency are depicted in Table 5. The
variance analysis of quadratic regression model demonstrated that

Table 5
Analysis of variance table.
Source

Sum of
squares

Model
X1-ZnCl2
X2-ash
X3 -P650
X1X2
X1X3
X2X3
X12
X22
X3 2
Residual
Lack of
t
Pure
error

2429.97
630.66
0.55
1742.86

Cor total

df

Mean
square

9 270.00
1 630.66
1
0.55
1 1742.86

32.95
17.51
3.26
0.24
1.93
0.05
0.64
0.64

1
1
1
1
1
1
7
3

32.95
17.51
3.26
0.24
1.93
0.05
0.09
0.21

0.00

0.00

2430.61

16

F value

P-value Prob > F

signicant

2951.81 <0.0001
6894.86 <0.0001
5.97
0.0445
19,054.35 <0.0001
360.21 <0.0001
191.48 <0.0001
35.62
0.0006
2.60
0.1511
21.13
0.0025
0.56
0.4798

R-squared: 0.9997; Adj R-squared: 0.9994; Pred R-squared: 0.9958.

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E.L. Terechova et al. / Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2 (2014) 21112119

this model was highly signicant, as is evident from the Fishers

F-test with a very low probability value (<0.0001). The F value of
2951.81 proved that independent variables as well as the
interactions between them had signicant inuence on the
removal efciency of LAS. X1, X3, X1X2, X1X3, X2X3 and X22 are
signicant terms (P < 0.05), which indicates that the dosages of
ZnCl2 and P-650 and their interaction effect are the key factors for
LAS removal.
The goodness-of-t of the model was checked by the determination coefcient (R-squared), a statistical measure providing
explanatory power to the regression model. In this case, the value of
the determination coefcient (R-squared = 0.9997) indicates that
only 0.03 % of the total variations are not explained by the model
[25]. The adjusted determination coefcient (Adj R-squared) was
0.9994, showing the high signicance of the model. The Pre Rsquared of 0.9958 was close to Adj R-squared. Adequate
precision was a signal to noise ratio and compared the range of
the predicted values at the design points to the average prediction
error.
To aid visualization and help in identifying the type of
interactions between the test variables, the response surfaces
for the removal efciency of LAS are shown in Figs. 24 . Here, each
plot represented the effect of two variables at their studied range
with the other one maintained at its zero level. The shapes of
contour plots indicated the nature and extent of the interactions.
Fig. 2 clearly showed that the removal efciency of LAS gradually
increased with the increasing ZnCl2 dosages. At a lower ZnCl2
dosage, the removal efciency of LAS decreased with the increase

of ash dosage, while further increased the ZnCl2 dosage, the

removal efciency of LAS improved obviously. Fig. 3 demonstrated
that the removal efciency of LAS apparently increased with the
increase of ZnCl2 and P-650 dosages, thus the effect of ash on LAS
removal is unconspicuous (as shown in Fig. 4). This nding could
be explained according to the coagulationocculation mechanism described in the next section.
The main objective of the optimization is to determine the
optimum values of variables for LAS removal from the experimental model. In this optimization study, the constrained optimization
program supplied in Design-Expert software was used. The
maximum removal efciency of LAS was ca. 71.31%, whereas
the maximum values of the process variables in coded values
given as follows: ZnCl2 = 29.54 mg/L, ash = 1936.35 mg/L and
P-650 = 196.38 mg/L. To conrm the model adequacy for predicting
the maximum removal efciency of LAS, two sets of additional
experiments under this optimum operation condition were
performed with the self-made LAS wastewater and the actual
laundry wastewater. As seen in Table 6, with regard to the selfmade LAS wastewater, the average removal efciency of LAS was
ca. 71.26%, while the average removal efciencies of LAS, COD and
suspension of the actual laundry wastewater in the three replicate
coagulationocculation experiments were 74.58%, 70.12% and
55.89%, respectively. The good conformity between the predicted
and experimental results veried the validity of the model and
reected the existence of an optimal point. On the other hand, the
solution pH in the two cases was slightly decreased from 9.0 to
8.0 after the coagulationocculation treatment.

Fig. 2. The effects of ZnCl2 and ash (P-650 = 115 mg/L) on LAS removal efciency: (a) surface graphs and (b) contour plots.

E.L. Terechova et al. / Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2 (2014) 21112119

2115

Fig. 3. The effects of ZnCl2 and P-650 (ash = 1000 mg/L) on LAS removal efciency: (a) surface graphs and (b) contour plots.

The mechanism of coagulationocculation process

Generally, the conventional coagulationocculation treatment
process requires 210 hours depending on the types of coagulants
and occulants and their dosages. However, the coagulation
occulation process in present work takes no longer than 30 min
indicating the signicant increase of the treatment rate. This nding
maybe due to the use of specic coagulant (Zn2+ salts and ash) and
cationic high-molecular occulant (Praestol-650), which transferred
the conventional coagulationocculation treatment mechanism
into an extraction mechanism for contaminants preliminarily
destabilized by high-molecular electrolyte.
According to the results obtained in RSM research, the new
mechanism for the present coagulationocculation treatment
process was proposed as follows: in wastewater LAS is present in
the free ion-molecular state, which is generally considered as the
stabilizer of emulsion and suspension (Fig. 5a). When ZnCl2 was
added, two processes could happen: (i) the conversion of LAS
molecules to the insoluble complex and (ii) the partial coagulation
of emulsion and suspension due to the consumption of hydrated
ions of Zn(OH)+ (as shown in Eq. (3) and Fig. 5b).
R

SO3Na

SO3

Zn

2+

Zn

+ 2Na+

(3)

It is known that the coagulationocculation of surfactant is

through adsorption onto ash particles and largely depends on the
surface property of the ash particles and pH of the suspension [26].
In this context, the effect of solution pH on the adsorption
performance of LAS on the mineral ash particles was investigated.
As seen in Fig. 6, the mineral ash particles possess good adsorption
ability towards LAS molecules in the pH range of 1.013.0, however,
a much lower adsorption removal rate was observed at ca. pH 6.0.
This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that the mineral ash
particles and LAS molecules have the same electrical property at
this pH value, which results in the poor removal rate of LAS due to
the electrostatic repulsion. In the pH range of above 6.0, the
adsorption removal rate increases signicantly. The reason for this
tendency may be that abundant hydroxyl ions were adsorbed onto
the mineral ash particles, which generate the hydrogen bonding
connection with the


SO3
groups of LAS molecules. Thus, the
coagulation of mineral ash could be explained according to the
sorption mechanism. On the other hand, the ash particle surface is
hydrophilic and LAS molecule also possesses the free hydrophilic
group (sulfonated aromatic ring) in laundry wastewater, therefore
the suspension and emulsion particles and LAS molecule can be
partially destabilized by Zn(OH)+ adsorbed on the surface of
mineral ash. This resulted in the formation of intermediate
complex aggregates (Fig. 7a), which are negatively charged with
the zeta potential value of
18.97 mV. After the addition of
cationicocculant (P-650), macro-aggregates would generate in
wastewater through the ion-ion interaction [2729], as shown in

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Fig. 4. Surface graphs of the effects of ash and P-650 (ZnCl2 = 17 mg/L) on LAS removal efciency: (a) surface graphs and (b) contour plots.

Fig. 7b . Therefore, the preliminary stabilization with ash and ZnCl2

is the necessary step for wastewater treatment, which can
signicantly reduce the consumption of cationic occulants.
Photolysis by ultraviolet
According to the requirements in urban wastewater treatment,
LAS concentration in wastewater should not exceed 5.0 mg/L, while
when the treated efuent is directly discharged into an open water
body [30], LAS concentration is strictly controlled in the range of
0.20.3 mg/L, depending on the category of the water body [31].
Generally, the residual content of LAS in wastewater was 310 mg/L
after the coagulationocculation process, which did not meet with
the discharged standard. Therefore, the supernatant was further
treated using the ultraviolet photolysis to eliminate LAS in the actual
laundry wastewater. Fig. 8 presents the effect of different pH on the

residual LAS concentration after UV irradiation. At pH 6.0, LAS

concentration exhibits a sharp decrease in the rst 5 min after
irradiated, and then it was maintained at 2 mg/L. However, LAS
concentration exhibited a successive declining tendency in pH 8.0.
After irradiated for 30 min, LAS concentration was less than 0.5 mg/L,
indicating that the alkaline medium is benecial to the ultraviolet
photolysis of LAS. The reason for this phenomenon is that (i) in
alkaline media of pH 8.0, the residual Zn2+ in the supernatant will
form Zn(OH)2; (ii) under the irradiation of ultraviolet light, the
oxygen molecules in the air were photolyzed to forming atomic
oxygen, and then the atomic oxygen was reacted further with oxygen
molecule generating ozone; (iii) the supernatant taken for
photolysis certainly contains the residual Fe2O3 and TiO2 particles,
which results in the ultraviolet photocatalytic oxidation and the
catalytic ozonation in photolysis process. Thus, under the combined
effects of sedimentation, photocatalytic oxidation and the catalytic

Table 6
The average removal efciencies of LAS, COD and suspension in the three replicate coagulationocculation experiments. Conditions: pH 9.0, the dosages of ZnCl2, ash and
P-650 was 29.54, 1936.35 and 196.38 mg/L, respectively.
No. test

LAS
Residual concentration (mg/L)

Removal rate (%)

Residual COD (mg/L)

Removal rate (%)

Residual concentration (mg/L)

Removal rate (%)

1
2
3
Mean result

3.56a , 5.12b
4.05a , 4.83b
4.29a , 5.06b

74.21a , 73.98b
70.68a , 75.46b
68.90a , 74.29b
71.26a , 74.58b

89
82
80

68.21
70.71
71.43
70.12

51.4
54.8
52.6

57.16
54.33
56.17
55.89

a
b

For the the self-made LAS wastewater.

For the actual laundry wastewater.

COD

Suspensions

E.L. Terechova et al. / Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2 (2014) 21112119

2117

Fig. 5. (a) Stabilization of emulsion and suspension in presence of LAS; (b) the
coagulation scheme of colloid particles by Zn(OH)+ ions.

ozonation, the removal rate of LAS was signicantly promoted

and the partial organic substances were broken to forming CO2
and H2O.
The products in photolysis process
After the coagulationocculation treatment, the supernatant
components of laundry wastewater were analyzed by gas
chromatography (GC) before and after ultraviolet photolysis to
further conrm the degradation degree of LAS. As seen in Table 7,
the concentration of ketones (acetones), alcohols and fatty acids in
wastewater were lower than the maximum permissible concentration (MPC) norms [32,33] after the ultraviolet photolysis. This
nding testied the fact that the destruction of organic substances
in wastewaters by ultraviolet photolysis process mainly involved
the formation of non-toxic components (E?2 and =2?) [11,17,18],

and also afrmed that no secondary pollutants were generated in

sewage after the coagulationocculation/ultraviolet photolysis
treatment.

Fig. 6. The effect of solution pH on the adsorption performance of LAS on the

mineral ash particles.

Fig. 8. Residual LAS concentration in coagulationocculation supernatant after

the ultraviolet photolysis under the condition of the different solution pH.

Fig. 7. (a) The formation scheme of the intermediate aggregates after the
adsorption of contaminants on ash particles; (b) the macro-aggregates in
wastewater in the presence of Praestol-650 occulant.

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Table 7
Results of gas chromatography.
Parameters (mg/L)

After coagulationocculation treatment

After photolysis t = 30 min

MPC in water body (mg/L)

Ketones (acetones)
Alcohols
Methyl
Ethyl
Isopropyl

0.162

0.244

0.55

0.0984
0.135
0.0198

0.174
0.099

0.25

[29,30]

Fatty acids E2E10

Acetic (E2)
Butyric (E4)
Valeric (E5)
Caprylic acid (E8)

0.0367
0.127

0.0377
0.126

0.55
0.55
0.55
1.0

[30]

Fatty acids E8E22

Capric (E10)
Palmitic (E16)
Stearin (E18)

0.00494
0.049
0.315

0.034
0.24
0.138

1.0
1.0
1.0

[30]

Conclusions
In this study, a combined chemical coagulationocculation/
photolysis process was proved to be a suitable treatment strategy
for dealing with LAS in laundry wastewater. Mineral ash, ZnCl2,
and P-650 were chosen as coagulant-sorbent, complex former
and cationic high molecular occulants, respectively, in the
coagulationocculation process. Their dosages were optimized
by RSM. Under the condition of the optimal parameters of
ZnCl2 = 29.54 mg/L; ash = 1936.35 mg/L and P-650 = 196.38 mg/L,
71.26% and 74.58% of LAS were removed from the self-made LAS
wastewater and the actual laundry wastewater, respectively. The
coagulationocculation process was consistent with the destabilization and the extraction of LAS by the high-molecular
occulants through the combined mechanisms of charge
neutralization and bridging. The alkaline environment is benecial to LAS photolysis removal. Results indicated that the
combined chemical coagulationocculation/ultraviolet photolysis process is an environmentally friendly strategy for laundry
wastewater treatment due to its efcient and rapid treatment rate
and novel charge neutralization/extraction mechanism.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the nancial support from the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21177017) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.
DUT13LK50).
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