PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
New and emerging pollutants (EPs) are synthetic or naturally occurring chemicals that are known or suspected of causing negative impacts on human health and the environment, but not all of them are yet commonly monitored; for example, they are not listed as pollutants by the Environmental Quality Standards Directive or Priority Substances Directive.
The major source of EPs is urban wastewater, as well as the effluents of the Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs) of hospitals, agriculture and industry.
Current WWTPs are not designed for the treatment and removal of EPs, resulting in them being discharged into the environment. Furthermore, many of them are known or suspected of being bioaccumulative and having a biomagnification character, increasing the risks of them entering aquatic and land ecosystems as well as drinking water sources.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE CLEAN UP aimed to validate an innovative, efficient and environmentally friendly system to remove EPs and other pathogens from wastewater. The solution consists of an adsorption system coupled with an advanced oxidation technology.
Different polymers, including cyclodextrins and hydrogels and biomaterials from agriculture, were tested in order to devise an optimised adsorption system, which aims to retain a high concentration of different families of EPs. On its way out of the adsorption system, the project aimed to test the treating of the water with an advanced oxidation process (AOP) involving light pulses, photocatalysis and photosensitisers to degrade pollutants and pathogens that were not previously retained.
The project was expected to demonstrate a system that integrates the proposed technologies – retention by adsorbent materials and destruction by AOPs – in a working WTTP on a semi-industrial scale, validating the process by comparing laboratory and plant results. This system is fed by renewable energy and do not generate waste (as the materials are re-usable).
To support its ultimate aim of reducing negative impacts on ecosystems and human health, the project would produce guidance to support take up of the system by WWTPs on an industrial scale. By removing pollutants that are not targeted by current water management systems in this way, the project aims to directly contribute to the implementation of European Directives on priority substances in the field of water policy as well as to the Water Framework Directive.
RESULTS
The LIFE CLEAN UP demonstrated a system for eliminating emerging pollutants and other pathogens in wastewater. Its treatment system, which uses renewable energy, was based on adsorbent material and advanced oxidation processes that degrade pollutants and pathogens that were not previously retained.
The project team constructed a pilot plant that was able to remove 77.7% of emerging pollutants in water and fully remove the phytosanitary compounds and the E. coli, C. perfringens and C. perfringens spores. However, due to design and operational limits, the capacity of the pilot plant was 3 m3 per hour (lower than the 5 m3/h planned), and the trials reached 250 L/h. Furthermore, the life cycle analysis and the technological and economic assessments showed that the project solution is not yet competitive from an environmental and economic point of view. As a consequence, the beneficiaries plan to continue optimising the process. They also conducted replication and transfer studies in seven sites (two replications at wastewater treatment plants and five transference studies at other industries).
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).
