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Characterization of persistent colors and decolorization of effluent from biologically treated cellulosic ethanol production wastewater

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Abstract

The high chroma of cellulosic ethanol production wastewater poses a serious environmental concern; however, color-causing compounds are still not fully clear. The characteristics of the color compounds and decolorization of biologically treated effluent by electro-catalytic oxidation were investigated in this study. Excitation-emission matrix (EEM), fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), UV-Vis spectra, and ultrafiltration (UF) fractionation were used to analyze color compounds. High chroma of wastewater largely comes from humic materials, which exhibited great fluorescence proportion (67.1 %) in the biologically treated effluent. Additionally, the color compounds were mainly distributed in the molecular weight fractions with 3–10 and 10–30 kDa, which contributed 53.5 and 34.6 % of the wastewater color, respectively. Further decolorization of biologically treated effluent by electro-catalytic oxidation was investigated, and 98.3 % of color removal accompanied with 97.3 % reduction of humic acid-like matter was achieved after 180 min. The results presented herein will facilitate the development of a well decolorization for cellulosic ethanol production wastewater and better understanding of the biological fermentation.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Scientific Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (51125033). The research also got the support from Key Science and Technology Program of the Heilongjiang Province (WB10A401) and the Heilongjiang Postdoctoral Fund (LBH-Z12132) in China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Lili Shan, Junfeng Liu, Yanling Yu, John J. Ambuchi & Yujie Feng

  2. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Yanling Yu

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  1. Lili Shan
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  2. Junfeng Liu
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  3. Yanling Yu
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  4. John J. Ambuchi
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  5. Yujie Feng
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Correspondence to Yanling Yu or Yujie Feng.

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Responsible editor: Bingcai Pan

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Shan, L., Liu, J., Yu, Y. et al. Characterization of persistent colors and decolorization of effluent from biologically treated cellulosic ethanol production wastewater. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 10215–10222 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6220-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6220-5

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