The paper industries use lots of different kind of effluent treatment systems.

By having a
suitable combination for each individual case depends on how they wanted their effluent to
be later on. Below are just the processes that suitable and can be use for treatment process
for pulp and paper industries regardless of the capacity of the plant.
Sedimentation process:
It involved only solid-liquid separation process. This is the simplest and most economical
method of separation process. High efficiency is achieved when suspended material in the
effluent settle down in the sedimentation tank completely, then the settled sludge will be
removed from the sedimentation tank. The equipment come out with sets of lamella-shaped
passages, are employed in the paper industry, especially for effluent with high contain of fibre
concentration.
Biological treatment:
The design of this treatment is to degrade pollutants dissolved in effluents by action of microorganisms. Using the pollutants as feed to the micro-organism, it live and continue to
reproduce. Perquisite for such degradation activity, however, is that the pollutants are soluble
in water and non toxic.

Anaerobic and aerobic technology:

Anaerobic treatment is used for effluent originating from recycle paper mills, especially
during production of containerboard. Wastewater such as come from mechanical pulping,
semi chemical pulping and sulphite and kraft evaporator condensates may be treated. While
aerobic micro-organism need oxygen to support their metabolic activity. Using special
aeration tank, oxygen is supplied to the effluent in form of air. This process operated plants
exhibit higher plant stability and is less sensitive to fluctuations in effluent and plant
parameters.

Secondary clarification:
Main concern of this process is to separate the activated sludge formed in biological reactors
and is therefore a key element in all processes employed in the final stage of a treatment
plant. From here, quality of effluent will be determine whether is achieved the target or no.
Advanced and tertiary treatment:
After physical and secondary treatment which removed most of the waste, they will be a
specific waste left and it need specific method to remove them. Different treatment processes
are necessary to remove nitrogen, phosphorus, additional suspended solids, and refractory
organics or dissolved solids. Depend on situation, tertiary can be paired with primary or
secondary treatment or used in place of secondary treatment. As for pulp and paper industries,
the used of additional biological membrane reactors, ozone treatment and membrane filtration
techniques to improve the quality of the filtration process.
Below is the list of new technology that has been applied to wastewater treatment for pulp
and paper industries as they give out a good result.
Multifo-softening technology (Veolia):
Veolia has produced and used very advanced technology for precipitating process where
sludge circulation including forced-circulation, draft-tube crystallizers with custom mixers
that yield very high circulation to minimized supersaturated zones.
Filtration Assisted Crystallization Technology (TNO)
FACT is a hybrid process patent by company named TNO, combining heterogeneous
crystallization and simple filtration. The heterogeneous seeds should allows fast
crystallization and easy filtration.
Electrodialysis:
Electrodialysis involved electrochemical membrane separation technique for ionic solutions
that has been used in the industries long ago. Targeted waste is separation of salts, acids and
bases from aqueous solutions. Also separation of monovalent ions from multivalent ions, and
the separation of ionic compounds from uncharges molecules.

Advanced flocculation:
Flocculation process is a critical process especially chemical part where it promotes the
aggregation of particles after being destabilized by chemical agent. This process occurs at
different part of process: it is essential to form the paper sheet in the forming wire,
determining retention, drainage rate and the formation, and it is also used in the wastewater
treatment to separate the colloidal material and in the sludge thickening.
Ozone / AOP technologies:
Combined chemical AOP and biological oxidation processes are well known for removing
recalcitrant and anthropogenic substances from wastewater. Decolourization with ozone has
been established as an application of polishing of biological treated effluents.
MBR processes:
The usage of membrane bioreactor process in a municipal and technology as end-of-pipe
technology as well as process integrated measure for reduction on the concentration of
detrimental substances n the water circuit. Important parameter like effluent quality and
economical aspects a MBR is a sustainable technology for industrial wastewater treatment.

In general, excluding the main case study which is in Malaysia, below is the details regarding
wastewater for pulp and paper industries based on research paper done by Department of
Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering of Concordia University in Canada.

Table below shows various waste produce by various type of pulp and paper process:

Table below shows performance of different aerobic process:

Table below shows the performance of different anaerobic process:

Table below shows hybrid version of the process: