A 1995 study — Destruction of PCDD and PCDF in bleached pulp by chlorine dioxide treatment — shows that chlorine dioxide treatments of wood pulp can reduce the number of dioxins in the finished product and in the effluent wastewater.

In one of the experiments, pulp that was treated with chlorine dioxide contained anywhere between 39% and 69% of the PCDD that was in the original pulp. In a second experiment, pulp treated with chlorine dioxide contained 56-63% of the PCDD in the original pulp. On average, chlorine dioxide treatments cut the total concentration of PCDD in half. In the second experiment, the researchers also tested the effluent wastewater. After the chlorine dioxide treatment, the dioxins were not measurable; they were destroyed in the process.

Chlorine dioxide could help clean up the pulp manufacturing industry