Release of microplastic particles to the aquatic environment via wastewater treatment plants: The impact of sand filters as tertiary treatment

2021 ◽  
pp. 130933
Author(s):  
Matin Funck ◽  
Mohammed M.S. Al-Azzawi ◽  
Aylin Yildirim ◽  
Oliver Knoop ◽  
Torsten C. Schmidt ◽  
...  
2009 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 49-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. D. Lam ◽  
B. Schmalz ◽  
N. Fohrer

Abstract. The aims of this study are to identify the capacities of applying an ecohydrological model for simulating flow and to assess the impact of point and non-point source pollution on nitrate loads in a complex lowland catchment, which has special hydrological characteristics in comparison with those of other catchments. The study area Kielstau catchment has a size of approximately 50 km2 and is located in the North German lowlands. The water quality is not only influenced by the predominating agricultural land use in the catchment as cropland and pasture, but also by six municipal wastewater treatment plants. Ecohydrological models like the SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) are useful tools for simulating nutrient loads in river catchments. Diffuse entries from the agriculture resulting from fertilizers as well as punctual entries from the wastewater treatment plants are implemented in the model set-up. The results of this study show good agreement between simulated and measured daily discharges with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency and a correlation coefficient of 0.76 and 0.88 for the calibration period (November 1998 to October 2004); 0.75 and 0.92 for the validation period (November 2004 to December 2007). The model efficiency for daily nitrate loads is 0.64 and 0.5 for the calibration period (June 2005 to May 2007) and the validation period (June 2007 to December 2007), respectively. The study revealed that SWAT performed satisfactorily in simulating daily flow and nitrate loads at the lowland catchment in Northern Germany.


2020 ◽  
Vol 699 ◽  
pp. 134322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Nannou ◽  
Anna Ofrydopoulou ◽  
Eleni Evgenidou ◽  
David Heath ◽  
Ester Heath ◽  
...  

Molecules ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (22) ◽  
pp. 4148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poerio ◽  
Piacentini ◽  
Mazzei

Plastic pollution of the aquatic environment is a major concern considering the disastrous impact on the environment and on human beings. The significant and continuous increase in the production of plastics causes an enormous amount of plastic waste on the land entering the aquatic environment. Furthermore, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are reported as the main source of microplastic and nanoplastic in the effluents, since they are not properly designed for this purpose. The application of advanced wastewater treatment technologies is mandatory to avoid effluent contamination by plastics. A concrete solution can be represented by membrane technologies as tertiary treatment of effluents in integrated systems for wastewater treatment, in particular, for the plastic particles with a smaller size (< 100 nm). In this review, a survey of the membrane processes applied in the plastic removal is analyzed and critically discussed. From the literature analysis, it was found that the removal of microplastic by membrane technology is still insufficient, and without the use of specially designed approaches, with the exception of membrane bioreactors (MBRs).


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 117862212093585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karim M Morsy ◽  
Mohamed K Mostafa ◽  
Khaled Z Abdalla ◽  
Mona M Galal

Although significant progress has been achieved in the field of environmental impact assessment in many engineering disciplines, the impact of wastewater treatment plants has not yet been well integrated. In light of this remarkable scientific progress, the outputs of the plants as treated water and clean sludge have become potential sources of irrigation and energy, not a waste. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impacts of upgrading the wastewater treatment plants from primary to secondary treatment. The Lifecycle Assessment Framework (ISO 14040 and 14044) was applied using GaBi Software. Abu Rawash wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) has been taken as a case study. Two scenarios were studied, Scenario 1 is the current situation of the WWTP using the primary treatment units and Scenario 2 is upgrading the WWTP by adding secondary treatment units. The study highlighted the influence and cumulative impact of upgrading all the primary WWTPs in Egypt to secondary treatment. With the high amount of energy consumed in the aeration process, energy recovery methods were proposed to boost the circular economy concept in Abu Rawash WWTP in order to achieve optimal results from environmental and economic perspectives.


2017 ◽  
Vol 75 (12) ◽  
pp. 2964-2972 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Choubert ◽  
Samuel Martin Ruel ◽  
Cécile Miege ◽  
Marina Coquery

This paper covers the pitfalls, recommendations and a new methodology for assessing micropollutant removal efficiencies in wastewater treatment plants. The proposed calculation rules take into account the limit of quantification and the analytical and sampling uncertainty of measured concentrations. We identified six cases for which a removal efficiency value is reliable and four other cases where result is highly variable (uncertain) due to very low or unquantified concentrations in effluent or when the influent–effluent concentrations differential is below the measurement uncertainty. The influence of the proposed calculation rules on removal efficiency values was scrutinized using actual results from a research project. The paper arrives at detailed recommendations for limiting the impact of other sources of uncertainty during sampling (sampling strategy, cleaning and field blank), chemical analyses (suspended solids and sludge) and data processing according to the targeted objectives.


2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Mosteo ◽  
M. P. Ormad ◽  
P. Goñi ◽  
J. Rodríguez-Chueca ◽  
A. García ◽  
...  

The aim of this research work is to identify the presence of pathogens, bacteria and protozoa, in different treated urban wastewaters and to relate biological pollution with the processes used in wastewater treatment plants. A study of the possibilities for water reuse is carried out taking into account bacterial and parasite composition. The analysed bacteria and protozoa are: Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens (spore), Salmonella spp., Legionella spp., helminths eggs, Giardia, Cryptosporidium spp. and free-living amoebae (FLA). The selected municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWTPs) are located in Navarra (Spain) and the main difference between them is the use of natural lagoons as tertiary treatment in some plants. The results concerning bacteriological identification showed contamination of mainly faecal origin, and the use of natural lagoons as tertiary treatment in some MWTPs produced an important disinfection effect. Moreover, pathogen parasites such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium were not detected in the samples studied although FLA were identified in all cases.


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