Alkaline disinfection of urban wastewater and landfill leachate by wood fly ash

Abstract

Wood fly ash is an industrial by-product of the combustion of different wood materials and is mostly disposed of as waste on landfills. In our preliminary experiments, wood ash exhibited antibacterial activity against urban wastewater bacteria and we focused on wood fly ash as a potential substrate for wastewater disinfection. The addition of ash at a concentration of 10 g L -1 (1 %) caused an instant increase of pH in urban wastewater and landfill leachate. High pH (10.1-12.7) inactivated bacterial populations in the wastewater and the removal of faecal coliforms and intestinal enterococci after 6 h of contact was 100 % (below the detection limit; <1 CFU per mL) with the most efficient ash sample (ash from combustion of beech) both in urban wastewater and landfill leachate. Properly chosen wood fly ash, i.e. one that tends to increase the pH to the greatest extent, proved to be a very effective disinfection substrate. Considering that water treated with wood ash has a high pH and needs to be neutralised before discharge, ash would be suitable for disinfection of leachates when smaller volumes are treated.

Presence of carbapenem-resistant bacteria in soils affected by illegal waste dumps

“…Statistical analysis showed that the CRB37 and CRB42 counts correlated positively (p < 0.05) with each other and the He counts (Table 3) but showed no correlation (p > 0.05) with the Ie counts, pH, and water content in soil. The pH correlated positively with Ie (p < 0.05), as this type of bacteria better adapts to high pH (Meckes and Rhodes 2004;Ivankovic et al 2014). This finding also suggests that Ie, even though it is the usual indicator of anthropogenic influence, should not be considered as indicator of CRB presence in soil.…”

Mosses on Geopolymers: Preliminary Durability Study and Chemical Characterization of Metakaolin-Based Geopolymers Filled with Wood Ash

“…This behavior could be attributed to several reasons. First, most bacteria can live and multiply within pH 5–8, while the bacteria growing at pH above 10 are very few [ 43 ]. Therefore, with this explanation, it is reasonable to think that the geopolymer can create hostile bacterial growth environments.…”

“…Unlike the concrete tile (CEM II) in which moss growth occurred, none of the geopolymeric tiles with (GP30%WA) and without filler (GP) did this growth. Geopolymeric material and wood ash, having a basic pH, may create a hostile environment for the formation of the bacterial layer [ 43 ]. It is known that the bacterial layer is responsible for the engraftment of the spores [ 54 ].…”

Pathogens inactivation in nutrient recovery from urine: A review

“…Complete inactivation of E. coli, Salmonella enterica serovar typhymurium, and Porcine circovirus type 2 was achieved when removing phosphate from swine slurry at pH 10 using Ca(OH) 2 (Viancelli et al, 2015). The coliforms was also completely inactivated after 6 h of treatment using wood ash Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org to remove phosphate from urban wastewater and landfill leachate at pH of 10.1-12.7 (Ivanković et al, 2014). In addition, the optimal pH in ranges of 10-11 for the precipitation of struvite-K (Xu et al, 2011;Xu et al, 2012;Xu K. et al, 2015) may also improve the pathogens inactivation in the liquid fraction despite this has not been reported.…”