Literature review on textile wastewater characterisation

Abstract

In the textile industry, many different processes are used and almost all of them generate wastewater. The effluents resulting from these processes differ greatly in composition, due to differences in processes, used fabrics and machinery. Textile wastewater is usually treated as a mixed stream. For water and chemicals reuse purposes however, it is preferable to keep process streams apart and treat them separately. Characterisation of textile industry effluents is of great importance for the separate treatment of process streams. This literature review provides an overview of what is known about the wastewater of the separate processes, and the methods used for characterisation of these streams.