Pilot-Scale Treatment of Neutral Pharmaceuticals in Municipal Wastewater Using Reverse Osmosis and Ozonation

Abstract

Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) reaching surface waters through municipal wastewater are a concern, as existing treatment processes poorly remove them. While significant lab-scale evaluations have been performed on treatment options, full-scale tests are lacking. Presented is an experimental study from a full-scale research facility that is imbedded in a functioning municipal wastewater plant. Reverse osmosis and ozonation were tested as part of an active treatment train using secondary treated effluent from the adjoining facility. Reverse osmosis removed 92.6%, 99.0%, 99.6%, 97.8%, 99.0%, 99.6%, 99.9%, and 99.2% of metformin, cotinine, trimethoprim, caffeine, venlafaxine, carbamazepine, erythromycin, and fluoxetine, respectively. By ozone, sulfamethoxazole, carbamazepine, erythromycin and o-desmethylvenlafaxine were removed by more than 99.9%. Trimethoprim and venlafaxine were removed by more than 95%, with the remaining compounds removed by between 16% and 85%. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of reverse osmosis and ozonation for full-scale treatment.

Nanofiltration of Greywater to Remove Micropollutants

“…The observed membrane retention of ~52% was substantially higher than expected based on the properties of metformin and the MWCO of the applied nanofiltration membrane. Ozonation reduced the concentration of metformin in the concentrate stream by ~16%, consistent with previously reported removal rates by ozonation (Hollman et al, 2020). Here, selective degradation of other organics was proposed as one of the mechanisms limiting the direct removal of metformin by ozonation (Hollman et al, 2020).…”

“…Ozonation reduced the concentration of metformin in the concentrate stream by ~16%, consistent with previously reported removal rates by ozonation (Hollman et al, 2020). Here, selective degradation of other organics was proposed as one of the mechanisms limiting the direct removal of metformin by ozonation (Hollman et al, 2020).…”

“…Within the current thesis, a minimal direct benefit of an ozone dose of ~0.2 gO3/gDOC was observed on the reduction of micropollutants in the concentrate stream. While some targeted substances, such as diclofenac and metformin, were removed by this dose, the rates were substantially lower than previously reported (Acero et al, 2016;Hollman et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2013;Santiago-Morales et al, 2012).…”

Enhanced photocatalytic activity of Fe-, S- and N-codoped TiO2 for sulfadiazine degradation

“…It should be noted sulfadiazine is partially removed in wastewater treatment plant (Yadav et al 2018 ) and the effluent from the secondary sedimentation tank often contains a large number of sulfonamides and other drugs (Pan et al 2014 ). For the sake of effectively eliminating the sulfonamides in water, different treatments available have been researched and applied, such as adsorption (Li et al 2019 ), membrane filtration (Shamsuddin et al 2015 ; Hollman et al 2020 ) and biological treatment (Edefell et al 2021 ). Although various physicochemical and biological technologies can be used to remove these refractory compounds, most physicochemical methods merely transfer contaminants from the aqueous phase to the solid phase without complete degradation or mineralization (Manjunath et al 2017 ).…”

Study of the catalytic activity of multilayer graphene (MLG), molybdenum oxide (MoO2), and manganese ferrite (MnFe2O4) on the melanoidin removal by ozonation process

“…Both membrane separation methods and physical-chemical treatment methods showed excellent performance for color and organic load removal. However, these treatments may present limitations for large-scale application associated with accelerated membrane clogging, high reagent doses and costs, and high volumes of sludge generated (Romero et al 2015;Thanapimmetha et al 2017;Hoarau et al 2018;Hollman et al 2020). Although biological methods continue to gain strength in the field of wastewater treatment methods due to their inherent economic and ecological viability, these methods take longer to achieve the same efficiency in color and organic load removal (Chowdhary et al 2018).…”