Determination of Alkylphenols and Alkylphenol Ethoxylates in Some of the Textile Wastewater Samples in Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

Textile is one of the biggest industries and it has an enormous impact on the global economy. However, the textile industry is labelled as the most polluting of all the industries and this is due to its contaminated wastewater. Textile wastewater contains organic hazardous compounds like alkylphenols (APs) such as nonylphenols (NPs), and alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEOs) for example nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs), which may come from various detergents, wetting agents, emulsifying agents, etc. used in textile industries.  Literature review revealed that no work was reported on the APs and APEOs in the textile wastewater of Bangladesh. This study reports the status of some APs and some APEOs after assessing wastewater of some textile industries in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Investigations were carried out with the wastewater of seven textile industries located in the Dhaka Division, Bangladesh. Tests were carried out by an Agilent Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (LC-MS). The results revealed that none of the wastewater samples contained APs, and APEOs other than nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs) a form of APEOs. And it might have released from the textile products treating stuff through dissolution process. Among all the seven industries, two industries (28%) contained nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOs). The mean concentrations of the detected NPEOs were determined as 11.27 ± 0.24 µg L-1 and 14.01 ± 0.09 µg L-1 in the wastewater of the mentioned two industries. The levels of the observed concentrations of NPEOs were much higher than the specified limits for textile wastewater. Findings of the present work will create pressure on the textile industries of home and abroad for treating textile wastewater effectively and not letting APEOs cum NPEOs in the wastewater. And such activities all over will pave the way to save the ecological system.