Advanced technologies applied to wastewater treatment plant effluents
- Autores: Ana Justo Llopis
- Directores de la Tesis: Carme Sans Mazón (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat de Barcelona ( España ) en 2015
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: J. Giménez Farreras (presid.), Jorge Labanda Angulo (secret.), Adrián Manuel Tavares da Silva (voc.), Sandra Contreras Iglesias (voc.), Ana María Amat Payá (voc.)
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: TDX Dipòsit Digital de la UB
- Resumen
"This thesis is formed as a summary of publications developed in the Chemical Engineering Department from the University of Barcelona. The six publications of this thesis are focused on the application of advanced technologies to Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) effluents that are usually discharged to the aquatic environment. Water is an essential natural resource for the development of life and for human activities. Over the last few decades, water scarcity and water quality have become issues of major concern. Large amounts of water have been continuously contaminated, especially in developed countries. The restoration of water quality is essential to avoiding higher levels of contamination dealing with the ""zero discharge"" idea, and enabling water reuse. The implementation of tertiary treatments is necessary to reach the appropriate quality of water from effluents of WWTPs. It is generally assumed that not all polluting agents are removed through conventional WWTPs. These persistent compounds include the emerging pollutants group, constituted by chemicals of high diverse origin. They are characterized by their high production and consumption volumes, which entails their continuous presence in the environment even at low concentrations. Whereas their occurrence is fairly well-established, their long-term effects and environmental consequences are not clearly identified. Thus, additional advanced treatment steps should be considered to reduce their discharge into receiving waters. In this work, two groups of effluents that are usually discharge into water bodies without any extra treatment were treated: two types of secondary effluents and Reverse Osmosis (RO) brine effluent. Biologically treated sewage effluent contains a complex matrix of organic materials-Effluent Organic Matter (EfOM). This EfOM consisted of: refractory Natural Organic Matter (NOM), trace levels of synthetic organic compounds and soluble microbial products. Regarding RO, despite the high quality effluent generated, salts, biological constituents and organics, including micropollutants, are concentrated in the rejected effluent. Although their discharge is currently not regulated, safe environmental practices would suggest their treatment before its release and dilution into the environment. Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) appear to be appropriate for the treatment of waste streams that contains recalcitrant organic matter. These AOPs involves the in situ generation of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (HO). This work is focused in the UV/H202 and ozonation treatments. On the other hand, taking advantage of the biodegradability enhancement achieved by AOPs, the use of subsequent biological step has been also integrated in order to minimize even further the organic load of the target effluent. The selected biological process was the Biological Activated Carbon (BAC) filter, where microbial communities were established on the exhausted porous of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) surface."
