Doctoral dissertation on Treatment of Textile Wastewaters in Tirupur and Kanpur

Maria Jonstrup, Department of Biotechnology, Lund University, defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Treatment of textile wastewaters using combinations of biological and physico-chemical methods” on 29 September 2011. The faculty opponent was Professor Bert Allard, School of Science and Technology, Örebro University. 
Maria’s research was carried out within the department’s dye remediation research group (more information), under supervision from Prof. Bo Mattiasson, with funding from Sida and Mistra. In India, research has been carried out in Tirupur (photo to the right) and in Kanpur. The project was carried out in collaboration with Indiska Magasinet AB, Sweden, and the target was to deliver a viable treatment method to the textile industry for cleaner production.
This project focused on degradation of textile dyes using white-rot fungi and combining anaerobic-aerobic bacterial processes. Part of the effort also lay on photocatalysis, though being a physico-chemical process it has many advantages. First a laboratory scale treatment process for synthetic wastewater should be developed. Once this is achieved the next step is to build a pilot plant at a textile factory in India. The final goal is to be able to reuse the treated wastewater within the factory. More information with a link to the abstract.