The effect of hydrothermal treatment on industrial wastewater: Hungary as a case study

Industrial wastewater is a growing environmental challenge due to its high concentrations of organics and its limited biological degradability. Up to date, however, no published work discussed industrial wastewater characterization, which is the focus of this study. Moreover, the effect of hydrothermal treatment on the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and the soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) release was investigated in this work. Wastewater samples were collected from different industrial sites and characterized in order to determine their initial properties. It was summarized that the salinity of wastewater estimated by EC was relatively low, and its pH values were in the acceptable range. On the other hand, however, high values of sodium absorption ratio (SAR) were obtained in all samples post to hydrothermal treatment. Nonetheless, our results revealed higher SCOD release post to hydrothermal treatment suggesting better efficiency of COD removal obtained by this treatment technique.