Date of Defense
15-4-2025 10:30 AM
Location
F1-1077
Document Type
Thesis Defense
Degree Name
Master of Science in Water Resources
College
COE
Department
Civil and Environmental Engineering
First Advisor
Dr. Ashraf Aly Hassan
Keywords
Emerging contaminants, wastewater reuse, biofiltration, advanced oxidation process, hybrid treatment
Abstract
Renewable energy systems face significant challenges in ensuring stability, efficiency, and The global demand for potable quality water has been on a continuous rise. Consequently, water reuse is now considered as an alternative to significantly expand supplies of freshwater in communities facing water shortages. Most of the conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are not efficient in the removal of emerging contaminants from the water, which will cause serious issues to the environment, human and animal life. This research investigated the possibilities of treating wastewater for reuse. First, the feasibility of utilizing a biofiltration system without pre-treatment for removing emerging contaminants from the WWTP effluent was investigated. Two types of biofilter media- activated carbon (AC) and expanded glass (EG) were explored. Second, a hybrid treatment system, in which an advanced oxidation process (AOP) was provided as the pre-treatment to the biofiltration system. The adopted AOP for this study was UV/TiO2 photocatalysis. The conditions adopted for the biofilters were 15 minutes EBCT with a flow rate of 2.9 mL/min and for the photocatalysis pretreatment 1g/L TiO2 dosage, 60 minutes HRT, and 365nm UV lamps. Solid-phase extraction was performed for the contaminant extraction from the samples, which were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. It was found that 4 emerging contaminants were detected- dibutyl phthalate (DBP), phenothrin (PHN), malathion (MAL), and 9-aminoacridine (9-AA) at μg/L level only. Activated carbon removed 19.2% of TOC; removals increased to 60.2% when preceded by UV/TiO2 photocatalysis. AC was found to perform better than EG biofilters for TOC, DBP, PHN, and MAL removal in both individual and hybrid systems. EG biofilters showed better removal in both biofiltration-only and hybrid systems for the 9-AA than the AC biofilter and AOP-only systems. Both biofilters demonstrated similar nutrient removal and improved performance by the application of AOP pretreatment. In general, this investigation indicates that the integration of AOPs and biofiltration systems has the potential to address both emerging and conventional pollutants, as well as to facilitate water reuse.
Included in
HYBRID TREATMENT METHOD OF BIOFILTRATION PRECEDED WITH ADVANCED OXIDATION PROCESS FOR THE REMOVAL OF EMERGING CONTAMINANTS FROM THE WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT EFFLUENT
F1-1077
Renewable energy systems face significant challenges in ensuring stability, efficiency, and The global demand for potable quality water has been on a continuous rise. Consequently, water reuse is now considered as an alternative to significantly expand supplies of freshwater in communities facing water shortages. Most of the conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are not efficient in the removal of emerging contaminants from the water, which will cause serious issues to the environment, human and animal life. This research investigated the possibilities of treating wastewater for reuse. First, the feasibility of utilizing a biofiltration system without pre-treatment for removing emerging contaminants from the WWTP effluent was investigated. Two types of biofilter media- activated carbon (AC) and expanded glass (EG) were explored. Second, a hybrid treatment system, in which an advanced oxidation process (AOP) was provided as the pre-treatment to the biofiltration system. The adopted AOP for this study was UV/TiO2 photocatalysis. The conditions adopted for the biofilters were 15 minutes EBCT with a flow rate of 2.9 mL/min and for the photocatalysis pretreatment 1g/L TiO2 dosage, 60 minutes HRT, and 365nm UV lamps. Solid-phase extraction was performed for the contaminant extraction from the samples, which were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. It was found that 4 emerging contaminants were detected- dibutyl phthalate (DBP), phenothrin (PHN), malathion (MAL), and 9-aminoacridine (9-AA) at μg/L level only. Activated carbon removed 19.2% of TOC; removals increased to 60.2% when preceded by UV/TiO2 photocatalysis. AC was found to perform better than EG biofilters for TOC, DBP, PHN, and MAL removal in both individual and hybrid systems. EG biofilters showed better removal in both biofiltration-only and hybrid systems for the 9-AA than the AC biofilter and AOP-only systems. Both biofilters demonstrated similar nutrient removal and improved performance by the application of AOP pretreatment. In general, this investigation indicates that the integration of AOPs and biofiltration systems has the potential to address both emerging and conventional pollutants, as well as to facilitate water reuse.