LAUSR

Abstract Wastewater originating from tank truck cleaning (TTC) industry is reputed for its large variability and may lead to emission of recalcitrant and ecotoxic substances in discharge waters. In this study, TTC wastewater was biologically treated in two lab-scale activated sludge sequencing batch reactors. Two strategies were used, (1) influent pre-treatment with ozone followed by activated sludge treatment and (2) activated sludge treatment followed by polishing with ozone. Effluent soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD), ecotoxicity and the 4-nonylphenol (NP) concentration were used to evaluate and compare both strategies. Experiments were conducted for two different TTC companies using the same set-up. For Company 1, a decrease in ecotoxicity of 80 % was observed for algal growth inhibition and 10 % for Daphnia immobilization when using effluent polishing compared to pre-treatment. Hereby the NP concentration decreased below discharge limits (0.3 ng.mL−1). For Company 2 the ecotoxic effect in the algal growth inhibition test increased to 100 % when conducting effluent polishing, while ecotoxicity for the original effluent and the effluent from the pre-treated system were similar. sCOD did not decrease significantly and the discharge limit of NP was only met for one sample. Extended (7 h) effluent ozone polishing tests were conducted at two pH setpoints to assess the impact of radical formation during ozone treatment. In general, it was observed that ozone as a pre-treatment step had no significant influence on ecotoxicity and COD removal. Effluent polishing can improve ecotoxicity and effluent characteristics, despite the dependence on wastewater composition, as toxic side products may be produced.