Industrial watewater treatment

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Many industries produce wastewater that contains toxic compounds. These toxic compounds include both inorganic (heavy metals) as well as organic (phenolic/aromatic) compounds. Many of them are carcinogenic and must be removed before the wastewater can be discharged into the receiving waters. Two research projects are presented here which address this problem. -Heavy metals discharged by electroplating or mining industries are very toxic. These metals tend to remain in solution and therefore it is difficult to remove them. In the proposed project these metals will be allowed to combine with sulfide and the products are expected to settle out of the solution, which would improve the water quality. However, the challenge is to generate enough sulfide to bind with these metals. In this project an innovative approach is being taken to increase the production of sulfide, and thus develop an efficient treatment process. - Organics such as phenols discharged from refineries, etc. can remain in solution and pollute water ways. In this project it is proposed to use enzymes to react with these compounds as they are discharged by the industries.  The products of the reactions are not soluble in water and therefore, can be removed by settling.  By removing these products we can remove phenols and other similar toxic compounds from water.