Toxicity Study of a Textile Effluent Treated with Electrohydraulic Discharge and Coagulant/Flocculants

Exposure to complex organic substances present in textile wastewater has been considered a threat to human health and aquatic organisms. Development of appropriate treatment mechanisms, as well as sensitive monitoring assays, is considered important in order to safeguard and protect the delicate natural equilibrium in the environment. In this study, combined coagulation/flocculation and electrohydraulic discharge (EHD) system were explored for treatment of textile wastewater. Pre- and post-treatment samples were used to evaluate process efficiencies. Process efficiencies were evaluated using physicochemical characteristics, and cytotoxicity and inflammatory activities induced in macrophage RAW264.7 cell line. The RAW264.7 cell line was evaluated as an alternative to animals and human blood culture models, whose routine applications are hindered by stern ethical requirements. The toxicity of effluent was evaluated using WST-1 assay. The inflammatory activities were evaluated in RAW264.7 cell culture supernatant using nitric oxide (NO) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) as biomarkers of inflammation. The levels of NO and IL-6 were determined using the Griess reaction assay and double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunoassay (DAS ELISA), respectively. Overall, the results of this study show that combined approaches and not the single EHD system are sufficient for complete removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC), toxicity and inflammatory activities in textile wastewater. The study shows that induction of NO and IL-6 secretions in macrophage RAW264.7 cells is a very sensitive model system to monitor the efficiency of textile effluent treatment processes.