Recycled corrugated wire hose cover as biological carriers for greywater treatment in a sequential batch biofilm reactor. (15th June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tombola, Riccardo; Buttiglieri, Gianluigi; Auset, Maria; Gonzalez-Olmos, Rafael
• Is Part Of: Journal of environmental management. Volume 240(2019)
• Page Start: 475
• Page End: 484
• Publication Date: 2019-06-15
• Subjects: Greywater -- Biofilm -- Carriers -- SBR -- MBBR -- Micropollutants; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; Environmental management -- Periodicals; Environment -- Periodicals; Ecology -- Periodicals; 363.705
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.02.116
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0301-4797

Abstract

Abstract: Greywater treatment and reuse can be considered a promising option, in particular in water scarcity affected areas. In this work a waste material, namely recycled corrugated wire hose cover, was applied as an alternative and cheap carrier in a sequencing batch biofilm reactor (SBBR) for greywater treatment. The bioreactor performance was studied in terms of organic matter, nitrogen and micropollutant removal. Four operational stages were investigated: i) inoculation of the carriers; ii) greywater treatment with suspended biomass; iii) synthetic and iv) real greywater treatment with inoculated carriers in the SBBR. The SBBR could treat real greywater showing high removal efficiencies for COD (86.5 ± 5.8%), ammonium (98.4 ± 1.4%) and total nitrogen (71.4 ± 8.2%). The obtained efficiencies were similar to the ones obtained with commercial carriers and to other treatments such as MBBR or MBR. In terms of micropollutants, 7 out of 13 detected micropollutants were highly removed (efficiency higher than 85%) while 5 of them (ofloxacin, metoprolol acid, venlafaxine, iopromide and hydrochlorothiazide) were found to be highly recalcitrant to the treatment. Graphical abstract: Image 1 Highlights: Alternative low cost carriers were produced from recycled corrugated wire hose. SBBR was effective removing 86.5% COD, 98.4% NH4 + and 71.4% TN from greywater. The performance of the alternative and commercial carriers was similar. 7 Micropollutants were removed with an efficiency higher than 85%. 5 micropollutants were found to be highly recalcitrant to the treatment.