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Anaerobic digestion, an economic and energy-efficient biological process, is extensively applied in the treatment of a variety of wastewater streams and organic wastes. However, the ineffective mineralization of degradation-resistant organic wastes is considered a limiting factor for this promising technology, and has prevented it from being widely adopted for the anaerobic treatment of chemical-industrial organic wastewater. In this work, the advantages and benefits of anaerobic digestion and those conventional physical/chemical/biological methods are compared. This review also suggests the current challenges and barriers to the application of anaerobic digestion to the treatment of chemical-industrial organic wastewater by considering some typical degradation-resistant organic wastes as examples. Design improvements are required to enhance the degradation from refractory organics to fermentable organics …