Polymerization mother liquid (PML) is one of the main sources of wastewater in the chlor-alkali industry. The effective degradation of the PML produced in PVC polymerization using three or five ozone reactors in tandem was designed with a focus on improving the ozonation efficiency. The ozonation efficiency of the tandem reactors for the degradation of PML, along with the effect of ozone concentration, the number of reactors utilized in series, and the reaction time on the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal were investigated in detail. The results showed that the COD removal increased as the ozone concentration was increased from 10.6 to 60 mg·L-1, achieving 66.4% COD removal at ozone concentration of 80.6 mg·L-1. However, when the ozone concentration was increased from 60 mg·L-1 to 80 mg·L-1, the COD removal only increased very little. The COD decreased with increasing ozone concentration. During the initial degradation period, the degradation rate was the highest at both low and high ozone concentrations. The degradation rate decreased with reaction time. The rate at a low ozone concentration decreased more significantly than at high ozone concentration. Although high ozone concentration is desirable for COD removal and degradation rate, the utilization efficiency of ozone decreased with increasing ozone concentration. The ozone utilization efficiency of the five-reactor device was three times higher than that of three tandem reactors, demonstrating that ozonation utilization efficiency can be improved by increasing the number of tandem reactors. Ozonation in tandem reactors is a promising approach for PML treatment.
Keywords: COD; ozonation utilization efficiency; polymerization mother liquid; tandem reactor.