Concentration of Municipal MBBR Effluent by FO for Resource Recovery: Batch Experiments in Side-Stream Configuration.

A novel approach for resource recovery includes forward osmosis (FO) as a concentration step in municipal wastewater treatment. The current study investigates different pre-treatment strategies including biological treatment with a moving-bed bioreactor (MBBR) at different loading rates and particle removal by filtration and sedimentation. Membrane performance and recovery potential for energy and nutrients were investigated in laboratory-scale FO experiments in batch mode using pre-treated municipal wastewater as feed and 35 g/L NaCl as a draw solution. Initial water fluxes were in the range of 6.3 to 8.0 L/(m2·h). The baseline fluxes were modelled to account for flux decline due to concentration effects and to enable the prediction of flux decline due to membrane fouling. Fouling-related flux decline varied from 0 to 31%. Both organic fouling and precipitation of CaCO3 and CaHPO4 were identified by using SEM-EDS. High-rate flushing resulted in complete flux recovery under most conditions. Scaling could be avoided by lowering the pH. Two operation strategies were tested to achieve this: (1) applying a bioreactor with a low organic loading rate to achieve high nitrification, and (2) adding a strong acid. A low organic loading rate and the use of additional particle removal were efficient measures that reduced organic/particulate fouling. The recovery potentials for COD and phosphorous in FO concentrate were close to 100%.

Struvite crystallization by using raw seawater: Improving economics and environmental footprint while maintaining phosphorus recovery and product quality.

Seawater, as an alternative magnesium source, has the potential to improve the overall economics and environmental footprint of struvite production compared to the use of pure magnesium salts. However, the dilution effect and the presence of other ions in seawater can reduce the phosphorus recovery potential and the simultaneous precipitation of other compounds may reduce the quality of the produced struvite. This work presents a comparative study of seawater and MgCl2 by performing a series of thermodynamic equilibrium modeling and crystallization experiments. The results revealed that acceptable phosphorus recovery (80-90%) is achievable by using seawater as the magnesium source for struvite precipitation. Further, the simultaneous precipitation of calcium phosphates was successfully controlled and minimized by optimum selection of reaction pH and seawater volume (i.e. Mg:P and Mg:Ca molar ratios). The increase of temperature from 20 °C to 30 °C reduced the phosphorus recovery by 15-20% while it increased the particle size by 30-35%. The presence of suspended solids in reject water did not have significant effects on phosphorus recovery but it made the struvite separation difficult as the obtained struvite was mixed with suspended solids. The experimental results and economic evaluation showed that the use of seawater can reduce the chemical costs (30-50%) and the CO2-footprint (8-40%) of struvite production. It was concluded that seawater is a potential alternative to pure magnesium sources in struvite production, while studies in larger scale and continuous mode are needed for further verification before full-scale applications.

Triple bottom line assessment of raw water treatment: methodology and application to a case study in the municipality of Oppegård in south-eastern Norway.

There could be several options a water treatment plant (WTP) can select from, if an improvement in treated water quality (WQ) is desired. This paper outlines a methodology to test a variety of approaches to accomplish pre-set goals as regards WQ, while adopting a triple bottom line approach. This approach, in a nutshell, takes into consideration economic, environmental and social aspects in decision-making. The methodology has been applied to the Stangasen WTP in the town of Oppegård in south-eastern Norway. Among the seven alternative approaches compared were the use, as coagulant, of five different dosages of granulated aluminium sulphate, liquid aluminium sulphate (48%) and liquid ferric chloride (40%). Using the set of weighting factors obtained from experts, it was determined that increasing the dosage of granulated aluminium sulphate by 20% over the current one would be the most sustainable option from a triple bottom line point of view.

Degradation of 2,4-dihydroxibenzoic acid by vacuum UV process in aqueous solution: kinetic, identification of intermediates and reaction pathway.

2,4-Dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,4-DHBA) is found frequently as a pollutant in natural waters and represents a threat to water quality because it is a precursor to the formation of quinones which are highly toxic. The degradation of 2,4-DHBA using the vacuum UV photolysis of water has been investigated. Irradiation was carried out in an annular photoreactor equipped with a Xe-excimer lamp situated in the centre and emitting at 172 nm. The degradation kinetic followed a pseudo first order and the reaction has been found to be very heterogeneous, especially at low concentration. Impacts of oxygen or temperature have also been investigated but no effect has been shown. LC-MS and HPLC-UV combined with other analytical techniques allowed the identification of the formation of trihydroxybenzoïc acids and trihydroxybenzenes which underwent a ring opening, conducting to the formation of aliphatic products named α, ß, δ and γ. These products were in turn degraded successively into maleïc acid, malic and succinic acid, malonic acid, glyoxalic acid and oxalic acid before reaching the complete mineralization in about 180 min. The proposed reaction pathway has shown to be very different from the one observed for the TiO(2) photocatalysis which involves only holes (h(+)) without any formation of aromatic intermediates. The different behaviours of 2,4-DHBA towards the h(+) and HO make it a good probe to identify involved entities.

Hydrogen peroxide evolution during V-UV photolysis of water.

Hydrogen peroxide evolution during the vacuum-ultraviolet (V-UV, 172 nm) photolysis of water is considerably affected by the presence of oxalic acid (employed as a model water pollutant) and striking differences are observed in the absence and in the presence of dioxygen.