Objective
Due to the likely toughening of environmental legislation in the near future, many of the currently operating wastewater treatment systems will no longer be acceptable, and will have to significantly increase their efficiency. The Directive 2000/60/EC, establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy, says that Member States shall establish maximum annual averages for the release of certain pollutants, such as substances that have an unfavourable influence on oxygen balance. Stricter regulations can be found for especially sensitive areas, for areas of abstraction of drinking water or for bathing waters. The problem of meeting existing and future more stringent new regulations affects especially small communities, hotels, campsites, etc in more or less isolated or remote areas and without access to sophisticated centralised wastewater treatment plants. Moreover, in the case of tourist resorts, it is not unusual that the wastewater load is increased up to five times during holidays season, making it impossible for local treatment systems to maintain an acceptable organic removal. On the other hand, these tourist locations frequently require to maintain a very high water quality (including the microbiological quality) in order to keep or increase the rate of visitors (especially in mountain lakes, coastal areas, etc).
The aim of the present project IWAPIL is to develop and test an innovative a membrane bioreactor (MBR) intended for use in remote communities, mountain hotels, campsites, etc. The new system will be based in a newly developed membrane and membrane module and will allow to overcome most of the problems that make nowadays MBR's not practicable for decentralised uses, where no skilled operators can be present. The innovative characteristics of the mentioned new membrane and membrane module will make it possible to achieve a low-maintenance and extremely efficient wastewater system Whose effluent can be even reuse...
Fields of science
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiespublic policies
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processesdrinking water treatment processes
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processeswastewater treatment processes
- engineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactors
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrology
Call for proposal
FP6-2002-SME-1
See other projects for this call