Stripping of organic compounds from wastewater as an auxiliary fuel of regenerative thermal oxidizer.

Organic solvents with different volatilities are widely used in various processes and generate air and water pollution problems. In the cleaning processes of electronics industries, most volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are vented to air pollution control devices while most non-volatile organic solvents dissolve in the cleaning water and become the major sources of COD in wastewater. Discharging a high-COD wastewater stream to wastewater treatment facility often disturbs the treatment performance. A pretreatment of the high-COD wastewater is therefore highly desirable. This study used a packed-bed stripping tower in combination with a regenerative thermal oxidizer to remove the COD in the wastewater from a printed circuit board manufacturing process and to utilize the stripped organic compounds as the auxiliary fuel of the RTO. The experimental results showed that up to 45% of the COD could be removed and 66% of the RTO fuel could be saved by the combined treatment system.