Treatment and Decolorization of Dyes in an Anaerobic Baffled Reactor

Abstract

Synthetic organic colorants, the majority of which are recalcitrant in nature, are used universally in many different manufacturing processes. The dyes are released into the environment in industrial effluents and are highly visible even at low concentrations (<1 mg/L). Added to this, certain dyes, dye precursors, and aromatic amines have been shown to be carcinogenic. Thus, appropriate treatment of dye wastewaters to remove color and the dye compounds is clearly an important issue. Methanogenic toxicity tests on several food dyes provided a range of toxicity results, from noninhibitory (IC