A collaborative planning process to develop future scenarios for wastewater systems.

Wastewater infrastructure has a long lifetime and is subject to changing conditions and demands. When plans are made to upgrade or build new infrastructure, transdisciplinary planning processes and a robust analysis of future conditions are needed to make sustainable choices. Here, we provide a stepwise collaborative planning process in which future scenarios are developed together with local stakeholders and expert groups. The process was implemented at one of the largest wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Scandinavia. With a combination of workshops and the use of a web-based digital tool, future scenarios including flows, pollutant loads, and treatment requirements could be created. Furthermore, sustainability prioritizations affecting the WWTP, were identified. The future scenarios developed for the WWTP in the case study, predict stricter and new regulations, constant or lower future loads and ambiguous future flows. The highest ranked sustainability priority was low resource and energy consumption together with low CO2 footprint. The quantified future scenarios developed in the planning process were used as input to a process model to show the consequences they would have on the WWTP in the case study. Applying this collaborative process revealed future scenarios with many, sometimes conflicting, expectations on future WWTPs. It also highlighted needs for improvements of both the collection system and the WWTP.

Variations among Viruses in Influent Water and Effluent Water at a Wastewater Plant over One Year as Assessed by Quantitative PCR and Metagenomics.

Influent wastewater and effluent wastewater at the Rya treatment plant in Gothenburg, Sweden, were continuously monitored for enteric viruses by quantitative PCR (qPCR) during 1 year. Viruses in effluent wastewater were also identified by next-generation sequencing (NGS) in samples collected during spring, early summer, and winter. Samples of incoming wastewater were collected every second week. Seasonal variations in viral concentrations in incoming wastewater were found for noroviruses GII, sapovirus, rotavirus, parechovirus, and astrovirus. Norovirus GI and GIV and Aichi virus were present in various amounts during most weeks throughout the year, while hepatitis A virus, enterovirus, and adenovirus were identified less frequently. Fluctuations in viral concentrations in incoming wastewater were related to the number of diagnosed patients. The viruses were also detected in treated wastewater, however, with a 3- to 6-log10 reduction in concentration. Seven different hepatitis E virus (HEV) strains were identified in the effluents. Five of these strains belonged to genotype 3 and have been isolated in Sweden from swine, wild boars, and humans and in drinking water. The other two strains were divergent and had not been identified previously. They were similar to strains infecting rats and humans. Surveillance of enteric viruses in wastewater is a tool for early detection and follow-up of gastroenteritis outbreaks in society and for the identification of new viruses that can cause infection in humans.IMPORTANCE Both influent wastewater and treated wastewater at a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) contain a high variety of human viral pathogens with seasonal variability when followed for 1 year. The peak of the amount of 11 different viruses in the inlet wastewater preceded the peak of the number of diagnosed patients by 2 to 4 weeks. The treatment of wastewater reduced viral concentrations by 3 to 6 log10 Despite the treatment of wastewater, up to 5 log10 virus particles per liter were released from into the surrounding river. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) strains previously identified in drinking water and two new strains, similar to those infecting rats and humans, were identified in the treated wastewater released from the WWTP.

Using the electron localization function to correct for confinement physics in semi-local density functional theory.

We have previously proposed that further improved functionals for density functional theory can be constructed based on the Armiento-Mattsson subsystem functional scheme if, in addition to the uniform electron gas and surface models used in the Armiento-Mattsson 2005 functional, a model for the strongly confined electron gas is also added. However, of central importance for this scheme is an index that identifies regions in space where the correction provided by the confined electron gas should be applied. The electron localization function (ELF) is a well-known indicator of strongly localized electrons. We use a model of a confined electron gas based on the harmonic oscillator to show that regions with high ELF directly coincide with regions where common exchange energy functionals have large errors. This suggests that the harmonic oscillator model together with an index based on the ELF provides the crucial ingredients for future improved semi-local functionals. For a practical illustration of how the proposed scheme is intended to work for a physical system we discuss monoclinic cupric oxide, CuO. A thorough discussion of this system leads us to promote the cell geometry of CuO as a useful benchmark for future semi-local functionals. Very high ELF values are found in a shell around the O ions, and take its maximum value along the Cu-O directions. An estimate of the exchange functional error from the effect of electron confinement in these regions suggests a magnitude and sign that could account for the error in cell geometry.

Weighted score ratios (WRS) give transparent weighting in multicriteria sustainability assessments - A case study on removal of pharmaceutical residues from wastewater.

Sustainability assessment using multicriteria analysis (MCA) is a structured way of including criteria from the three sustainability dimensions (environmental, economic, and social) when comparing different alternatives. A problem with the conventional MCA methods is that the consequences of the weights given to different criteria are not transparent. Here, we amend the simple additive weighting MCA method with weighted score ratios (WSRs), which are used during the sustainability assessment to show how the weights affect the valuation of the criteria (e.g., cost per kg CO2e). This enables comparisons to other sustainability assessments and reference values from society, which increases the transparency and can make weighting more objective. We applied the method to a comparison of technologies for removal of pharmaceutical residues from wastewater. Due to growing concern about the effects that pharmaceutical residues can have on our environment, implementations of advanced technologies are increasing. However, they entail high requirements of energy and resources. Therefore, many aspects must be considered to make a sustainable choice of technology. In this study, a sustainability assessment was performed of ozonation, powdered activated carbon and granular activated carbon for removal of pharmaceutical residues at a large wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Sweden. The outcome showed that powdered activated carbon is the least sustainable choice for the studied WWTP. Whether ozonation or granular activated carbon is most sustainable depends on how climate impact and energy use are valued. The total sustainability of ozonation is affected by how the electricity is assumed to be produced, whereas for granular activated carbon it depends on whether the carbon source is of renewable or fossil origin. Using WSRs allowed the participants in the assessment to make conscious choices on how they weighted different criteria in relation to how these criteria are valued in society at large.

Direct precipitation on demand at large Scandinavian WWTPs reduces the effluent phosphorus load.

On demand use of direct precipitation of wastewater has been successfully implemented at several large Scandinavian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as a cost-efficient method of treating wastewater bypassing secondary treatment. During wet weather situations or when the capacity of secondary treatment is reduced excess wastewater can be treated through efficient direct precipitation. This increases the total capacity of the WWTP to remove phosphorus during these periods. This treatment strategy allows the WWTPs to meet stringent effluent phosphorus limits without extending secondary treatment of the main plant, despite high wet weather flows. The gain in terms of reduced phosphorus emissions varies depending on local conditions such as climate, collection system and secondary treatment capacity. It also varies from year to year depending on the weather and reductions of capacity due to planned refurbishing or unplanned breakdown of equipment. Operating chemical precipitation on demand has proved to contain challenges to operation and organisation of the WWTP. These challenges include logistics of start-up, training of staff and maintaining the system between occasions of operation. Sufficient up-stream storage capacity, reliable weather forecasts and good contracts with suppliers of chemicals are keys of success.

Surveillance of wastewater revealed peaks of SARS-CoV-2 preceding those of hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2 was discovered among humans in Wuhan, China in late 2019, and then spread rapidly, causing a global pandemic. The virus was found to be transmitted mainly by respiratory droplets from infected persons or by direct contact. It was also shown to be excreted in feces, why we investigated whether the virus could be detected in wastewater and if so, to which extent its levels reflects its spread in society. Samples of wastewater from the city of Gothenburg, and surrounding municipalities in Sweden were collected daily from mid-February until June 2020 at the Rya wastewater treatment plant. Flow proportional samples of wastewater were collected to ensure that comparable amounts were obtained for analysis. Daily samples were pooled into weekly samples. Virus was concentrated on a filter and analyzed by RT-qPCR. The amount of SARS-CoV-2 varied with peaks approximately every four week, preceding variations in number of newly hospitalized patients by 19-21 days. At that time virus testing for COVID-19 was limited to patients with severe symptoms. Local differences in viral spread was shown by analyzing weekly composite samples of wastewater from five sampling sites for four weeks. The highest amount of virus was found from the central, eastern, and northern parts of the city. SARS-CoV-2 was also found in the treated effluent wastewater from the WWTP discharged into the recipient, the Göta River, although with a reduction of 4-log10. The viral peaks with regular temporal intervals indicated that SARS-CoV-2 may have a cluster spread, probably reflecting that the majority of infected persons only spread the disease during a few days. Our results are important for both the planning of hospital care and to rapidly identify and intervene against local spread of the virus.

Calculation of chemical reaction energies using the AM05 density functional.

We present results that compare the accuracy of the AM05 density functional (Armiento and Mattsson, Phys Rev B 2005, 72, 085108; Mattsson et al., J Chem Phys 2008, 128, 084714) to a set of chemical reaction energies. The reactions were generated from the singlet species in the well-known G2 test suite (Curtiss et al., J Chem Phys 1991; Curtiss et al., J Chem Phys 1997; 106, 1063). Our results show that, in general, the AM05 functional performs nearly as well as the other "pure" density functionals, but none of these perform as well as the hybrid B3LYP functional. These results are nonetheless encouraging because the AM05 functional arises from very simple assumptions, and does not require the calculation of the Hartree-Fock exchange integrals.

Genes encoding tetracycline resistance in a full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plant investigated during one year.

Tetracycline-resistant bacteria and genes encoding tetracycline resistance are common in anthropogenic environments. We studied how wastewater treatment affects the prevalence and concentration of two genes, tetA and tetB, that encode resistance to tetracycline. Using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) we analysed wastewater samples collected monthly for one year at eight key-sites in a full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). We detected tetA and tetB at each sampling site and the concentration of both genes, expressed per wastewater volume or per total-DNA, decreased over the treatment process. The reduction of tetA and tetB was partly the result of the sedimentation process. The ratio of tetA and tetB, respectively, to total DNA was lower in or after the biological processes. Taken together our data show that tetracycline resistance genes occur throughout the WWTP, and that the concentrations are reduced under conventional operational strategies.

Dynamics in flocculation and settling properties studied at a full-scale activated sludge plant.

A comprehensive study of the dynamics in settling and flocculation properties at a full-scale activated sludge treatment plant with secondary settlers operated at their maximum capacity is presented. An extensive set of process data was analyzed to assess physical parameters affecting the capacity and performance of the secondary settlers. There was a large variation in the settling and compaction properties, and they changed quickly, as a result of the short sludge age. Even though the flocculation properties changed throughout the year, they were generally improved during the summer, with lower values of effluent turbidity and effluent suspended solids concentration. The shear sensitivity, which is a measure of floc stability, was higher during the winter, when the water temperatures were lower. The sludge floc morphology had, in general, a different internal structure, with more round microbial colonies during the warmer summer months and a more net-like open structure during the winter.

EVAS - a practical tool to assess the sustainability of small wastewater treatment systems in low and lower-middle-income countries.

Small wastewater treatment systems (WWTSs) in low and lower-middle income countries still face challenges to achieve optimal performance and acceptable levels of sustainability. Thus, a practical tool, easy to apply by locals, to diagnose the actual status of WWTSs is required in order to identify weak areas for further improvement. This study presents a sustainability assessment tool, EVAS (EVAluación de Sostenibilidad: EVAluation of Sustainability), for small WWTSs in low and lower-middle income countries. The EVAS tool is developed based on a set of contextualized sustainability indicators and sub-indicators in five dimensions (technical, environmental, social, economic, institutional). Each indicator or sub-indicator is broken down into factors, each associated with specific targets to fulfil, and scored using a traffic light scale (0 to 4) indicating unsustainable-low-medium to high levels of sustainability. The tool was developed taking into consideration that local data may sometimes be incomplete and encourages the collection and monitoring of relevant data. The assessment results support local managers or other stakeholders responsible for wastewater management with the identification of weaknesses that need to be addressed. The tool was tested using two case studies involving WWTSs in Bolivia. One WWTS received a medium sustainability rating, whereas the other system received a low sustainability rating, which indicates that several improvements are required in all sustainability dimensions. Stakeholders in the case studies found the tool useful, and suggested ways in which it could be further improved. It is expected that the application of this tool can contribute to raising the sustainability level of small WWTSs in low and lower-middle-income countries.

Prevalence of norovirus and factors influencing virus concentrations during one year in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant.

Norovirus (NoV) is a leading cause of acute gastroenteritis and is often spread via wastewater contamination. Little is known about how the wastewater treatment process affects norovirus, and which factors influence virus concentrations. To investigate this, we collected wastewater samples monthly during one year at eight different key sites at the municipal wastewater treatment plant in Gothenburg, Sweden. Virus particles were concentrated using ultracentrifugation, viral RNA was subsequently extracted, and transformed into cDNA by reverse transcription. The quantification was performed with real-time PCR assays for NoV genogroups I (GGI) and II (GGII), respectively. We found seasonal changes of NoV genogroups, with the highest concentration of NoV GGII during the winter months, and the highest concentration of NoV GGI during the summer months. Virus transmission in wastewater was more stable for NoV GGI, with NoV GGII demonstrating larger seasonal peaks. Virus reduction took place at similar rates in the primary settling, and in the activated sludge in combination with the secondary settling. Different physicochemical parameters and incoming virus concentrations were correlated to reduction of NoV between different treatment sites. This study gives new information about NoV transmission and virus reduction in a wastewater treatment plant.

Relationship between floc composition and flocculation and settling properties studied at a full scale activated sludge plant.

The variation in activated sludge floc composition, flocculation and settling properties was studied at a full scale plant over a 2-year period. A comprehensive set of process parameters was analysed and related to the floc properties to increase the understanding of the factors affecting floc formation. The composition of the activated sludge showed a seasonal change with higher concentrations of extractable extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) during the winter months. The protein content of the total sludge and EPS increased significantly during the winter. This coincided with higher effluent suspended solids concentrations and increased shear sensitivity of the sludge flocs. Only poor correlations between EPS contents and stirred sludge volume index (SSVI) could be observed. High iron concentrations in the sludge due to dosage of iron salt to precipitate phosphorus were found to have a negative impact on the settling and compaction properties of the sludge, whereas it had a positive impact on floc stability. Higher organic loading due to by-passed primary settlers leads to improved settling and compaction properties.

Atomistic simulation of orientation dependence in shock-induced initiation of pentaerythritol tetranitrate.

The dependence of the reaction initiation mechanism of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) on shock orientation and shock strength is investigated with molecular dynamics simulations using a reactive force field and the multiscale shock technique. In the simulations, a single crystal of PETN is shocked along the [110], [001], and [100] orientations with shock velocities in the range 3-10 km/s. Reactions occur with shock velocities of 6 km/s or stronger, and reactions initiate through the dissociation of nitro and nitrate groups from the PETN molecules. The most sensitive orientation is [110], while [100] is the most insensitive. For the [001] orientation, PETN decomposition via nitro group dissociation is the dominant reaction initiation mechanism, while for the [110] and [100] orientations the decomposition is via mixed nitro and nitrate group dissociation. For shock along the [001] orientation, we find that CO-NO(2) bonds initially acquire more kinetic energy, facilitating nitro dissociation. For the other two orientations, C-ONO(2) bonds acquire more kinetic energy, facilitating nitrate group dissociation.

AM05 Density Functional Applied to the Water Molecule, Dimer, and Bulk Liquid.

We compare results for water obtained with the AM05 exchange-correlation density functional ( Armiento, R.; Mattsson, A. E. Phys. Rev. B 2005, 72, 085108 ) with those obtained with five other pure functionals: LDA, PBE, PBEsol, RPBE, and BLYP. For liquid water, AM05 yields an O-O pair correlation function that is more structured than the ones of PBE and BLYP, which, in turn, are more structured than the one of RPBE. However, LDA and PBEsol yields more structured water than AM05. We show that AM05 yields a H2O dimer binding energy of 4.9 kcal/mol. The result is thus within 0.15 kcal/mol of CCSD(T) level theory (5.02 ± 0.05 kcal/mol). We confirm that accuracy in the water dimer binding energy is not a strong indicator for the fidelity of the resulting structure of liquid water.

The AM05 density functional applied to solids.

We show that the AM05 functional [Armiento and Mattsson, Phys. Rev. B 72, 085108 (2005)] has the same excellent performance for solids as the hybrid density functionals tested in Paier et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 124, 154709 (2006); 125, 249901 (2006)]. This confirms the original finding that AM05 performs exceptionally well for solids and surfaces. Hartree-Fock hybrid calculations are typically an order of magnitude slower than local or semilocal density functionals such as AM05, which is of a regular semilocal generalized gradient approximation form. The performance of AM05 is on average found to be superior to selecting the best of local density approximation and PBE for each solid. By comparing data from several different electronic-structure codes, we have determined that the numerical errors in this study are equal to or smaller than the corresponding experimental uncertainties.

Effects of environmental conditions on the nitrifying population dynamics in a pilot wastewater treatment plant.

The effect of environmental conditions, especially ammonium concentration, on community composition and nitrification activity of nitrifying bacterial biofilms in a pilot wastewater treatment plant was examined. A decreasing ammonium gradient was created when four aerated tanks with suspended carrier material were serially fed with wastewater. Community composition was analysed using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) probes as well as partial 16S rRNA and amoA gene analysis using polymerase chain reaction-denaturating gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) and sequencing. Fluorescence in situ hybridization probes identified at least five ammonia-oxidizing bacterial (AOB) and two nitrite-oxidizing bacterial (NOB) populations. A change in nitrifying community was detected in the tanks, indicating that ammonium was an important structuring factor. Further, we found support for different autoecology within the Nitrosomonas oligotropha lineage, as at least one population within this lineage increased in relative abundance with ammonium concentration while another population decreased. Absolute numbers of AOB and NOB growing in biofilms on the carriers were determined and the cell specific nitrification rates calculated seemed strongly correlated to ammonium concentration. Oxygen could also be limiting in the biofilms of the first tank with high ammonium concentrations. The response of the nitrifying community to increased ammonium concentrations differed between the tanks, indicating that activity correlates with community structure.