Advanced Treatment of Laundry Wastewater by Electro-Hybrid Ozonation–Coagulation Process: Surfactant and Microplastic Removal and Mechanism

Laundry wastewater is supposed to be one of the most important sources of surfactants and microplastics in the wastewater treatment plant. Consequently, the aim of the study was evaluating the performance and mechanism of the electro-hybrid ozonation–coagulation (E-HOC) process for the removal of surfactants and microplastics. In this study, the efficiency of the E-HOC process for surfactant and microplastic removal was examined at different current densities and ozone dosages. Under the optimal reaction conditions (current density 15 mA·cm−2, ozone dosage 66.2 mg·L−1), both the removal efficiency of surfactant and microplastic can reach higher than 90%. Furthermore, the mechanism of surfactant and microplastic removal was investigated by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The results showed that the E-HOC (carbon fiber cathode) system can produce more reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can significantly improve the removal of the contaminants. In addition, the shape, size and abundance of the microplastics were analyzed. It was found that the shape of the microplastics in laundry wastewater is mainly fiber. Microplastics less than 50 μm account for 46.9%, while only 12.4% are larger than 500 μm. The abundance of microplastics in laundry wastewater ranges between 440,000 and 1,080,000 items per 100 L. The analysis of microplastics by FT-IR showed that most of the microplastics in laundry wastewater were polyethylene, nylon and polyester. These results indicated that the E-HOC process can effectively remove surfactants and microplastics from laundry wastewater.