BACKGROUNDSurfactants are always used as collectors to form complexes with the hazardous materials of wastewaters in foam fractionation. An important topic is how to reuse the surfactants in the process of recovering the hazardous materials. In this work, a novel technology of foam fractionation coupled with adsorption separation was developed for separating streptomycin sulfate (SS) from its simulated wastewater and reusing the collector sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). RESULTSD152 resin had a high SS adsorption capacity and a low SDS adsorption capacity using adsorption separation. A high SS desorption percentage of 96.0% was obtained while SDS was not desorbed. The desorbed resin still had the same high SS adsorption capacity as a fresh one and SDS was not adsorbed. From the coupling technology, the SS recovery percentage reached as high as 94.1% which was better than foam fractionation or adsorption separation, respectively and 93.7% of SDS was reused. CONCLUSIONIt was effective for the coupling technology not only to separate SS from the wastewaters, but also to reuse SDS in foam fractionation. The coupling technology gave a novel and effective method for treating wastewaters. (c) 2014 Society of Chemical Industry