Search results for " wastewater"
showing 10 items of 209 documents
Electrochemical treatment of real wastewater. Part 1: Effluents with low conductivity
2018
Abstract The treatment of a real wastewater characterized by low conductivity was performed by anodic oxidation at boron doped diamond (BDD) in both conventional and microfluidic cells. The electrolyses carried out in conventional cells without supporting electrolyte were characterized by very high TOC removals but excessively high energetic consumptions and operating costs. The addition of sodium sulphate, as supporting electrolyte, allowed to strongly reduce the cell potentials and consequently the energetic consumptions and the operating costs. However, under various operating conditions, the addition of Na2SO4 caused a lower removal of the TOC. The best results in terms of both TOC remo…
A Friendly-Biological Reactor SIMulator (BioReSIM) for studying biological processes in wastewater treatment processes
2014
Biological processes for wastewater treatments are inherently dynamic systems because of the large variations in the influent wastewater flow rate, concentration composition and the adaptive behavior of the involved microorganisms. Moreover, the sludge retention time (SRT) is a critical factor to understand the bioreactor performances when changes in the influent or in the operation conditions take place. Since SRT are usually in the range of 10-30 days, the performance of biological reactors needs a long time to be monitored in a regular laboratory demonstration, limiting the knowledge that can be obtained in the experimental lab practice. In order to overcome this lack, mathematical model…
PERFORMANCE OF A MBR PILOT PLANT SUBJECT TO A GRADUAL SALINITY INCREASE: ANALYSIS OF BIOKINETIC AND FOULING BEHAVIOR
2013
Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) have been widely used for the treatment of various wastewater, including municipal, industrial, landfill leachate (Wintgens et al., 2005). Such systems generally provide decisive advantages compared to conventional activated sludge (CAS) processes: in particular, they feature high quality effluent, small footprint and low sludge production rates (Stephenson et al., 2000). In recent years MBRs have also been used for the treatment of specific saline water, such as wastewater produced from shipboard activities, aquaculture wastewater or wastewater deriving by sediment washing treatment, as an example. However, when subject to salinity, a modification of biomass cha…
Treatment of Oily Wastewater with Membrane Bioreactor Systems
2017
The aim of the present work was to investigate the behavior of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) system for the treatment of oily wastewater. A bench scale MBR was fed with synthetic wastewater containing diesel fuel. Organic carbon, hydrocarbon and ammonium removal, kinetic constants, extracellular polymeric substances production, and membrane fouling rates were monitored. The MBR plant was operated for more than 200 days, and the results highlighted good carbon removal and nitrification, suggesting a sort of biomass adaptation to hydrocarbons. Membrane fouling analysis showed an increase in total resistance, likely due to hydrocarbons, which caused an irreversible fouling (pore blocking) mainly…
BIO-ELECTROCHEMICAL SYSTEMS FOR ENERGY GATHERING FROM WASTEWATER
2017
It has been calculated that annually 1.5 × 108 MWh are wasted as municipal, industrial, and animal wastewater. The recovery of at least part of this energy it is of primary importance in order to approach circular economy. As AD, MFC is a biotechnology that uses microorganism into an anaerobic environment for energy conversion and recovery. Differently from AD, MFC belongs to the sub-division of Bio-Electrochemical Systems (BESs), having the advantage to achieve a direct electrical output. Exoelectrogens bacteria are employed, capable to close their respiratory electron chain on the surface of an electrode. Up to know, BESs were used to extract energy from a multitude of wastes, such as dis…
Preliminary evaluation of biopolymers production by mixed microbial culture from citrus wastewater in a MBR system using respirometric techniques
2021
Abstract This preliminary study was aimed at evaluating the feasibility to produce biopolymers (BP) from citrus wastewater by mixed microbial culture in an anaerobic/aerobic membrane bioreactor (A/O-MBR). The activated sludge of the A/O-MBR was successfully enriched in microorganisms having a good capacity in producing intracellular biopolymers. The production of BP was found to be about 0.55 mgCOD mgCOD−1 using pure acetate at a concentration of 1000 mgCOD L−1. When using fermented wastewater, the conversion of acetate into BP product was 0.56 mgCOD mgCOD−1 in the test performed with C/N equal to 1000:1, whereas it was only 0.12 mgCOD mgCOD−1 in the test with C/N of 100:5. The results achi…
Lack of evidence for infectious SARS-CoV-2 in feces and sewage
2021
Purpose: The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is a respiratory virus whose primary route of transmission is airborne. However, it has been shown that the virus can replicate in gastrointestinal cells, can be excreted in feces, and can reach sewage systems. Although viral RNA is known to be found in patient feces and sewage, little is known about the possible fecal-oral transmission of the coronavirus. Determining the presence of infective viral particles in feces and sewage is necessary to take adequate control measures and to discover new routes of coronavirus transmission. Here, we analyzed feces and urine of COVID-19 patients and wastewater samples at the time of high prevalence in the region unde…
Occurrence and transformation of illicit drugs in wastewater treatment plants.
2016
Illicit drugs (IDs) and their metabolites have been recently recognized as a new group of water emerging contaminants (ECs) with potent psychoactive properties and unknown effects to the aquatic environment (Pal et al., 2013). IDs are excreted via urine and feces and arrive at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) where can reach ppb levels (Castiglioni et al., 2006). Over the past few years, it has been demonstrated that conventional biological processes in WWTPs are not or scarcely able to remove IDs. Thus, they are discharged into water bodies through the treated effluent (Postigo et al., 2011). Therefore, monitoring the IDs concentration in WWTPs can have a twofold advantage: i. increase …
Magnetic hybrid TiO 2 /Alg/FeNPs triads for the efficient removal of methylene blue from water
2018
A new adsorbent material with combined adsorption, photocatalytic, and magnetic properties has been suc- cessfully synthesized and tested for the efficient dye removal from methylene blue (MB) contaminated water. A facile non-thermal method was applied to synthesize a hybrid nanocomposite consisting of TiO2/calcium algi- nate (TiO/Alg) and magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles (FeNPs). The potential of the adsorbent Alg as a barrier to prevent direct contact between the magnetic core and TiO2 was experimented by varying the synthesis condi- tions. The performance of four differently synthesized TiO2/Alg/FeNPs samples (TiO2/Alg/FeNPs-1, TiO2/Alg/ FeNPs-2, TiO2/Alg/FeNPs-3, and TiO2/Alg/FeNPs-4) wa…
Economic analysis of the scale-up and implantation of a hollow fibre membrane contactor plant for nitrogen recovery in a full-scale wastewater treatm…
2021
[EN] Nitrogen recovery technologies such as the hollow fibre membrane contactor are now being developed. However, an economic analysis is needed prior to their full-scale application in wastewater treatment plants. The aim of this study was to analyse the economic and environmental aspects of scaling-up this method. To achieve it, a full-scale 40,000 m3·day¿1-wastewater treatment plant influent flow rate was simulated jointly with a membrane contactor plant to evaluate the minimum costs of optimum operating conditions of membrane contactors (pH, feed flow rate and membrane surface). The optimum conditions for treating 600 m3·day¿1 of reject water was found to be 10 pH, 0.08 m3·s¿1 feed flow…