Interdisciplinary concepts for municipal wastewater treatment and resource recovery. Tackling future challenges

Project Information

TreatRec

Grant agreement ID: 642904

DOI

10.3030/642904

Project closed

EC signature date 14 November 2014

Start date 1 January 2015

End date 31 December 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 1 267 466,76

EU contribution

€ 1 267 466,76

Coordinated by

FUNDACIO INSTITUT CATALA DE RECERCA DE L'AIGUA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TreatRec (Interdisciplinary concepts for municipal wastewater treatment and resource recovery. Tackling future challenges)

Reporting period: 2017-01-01 to 2018-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The TreatRec project offered an innovative training programme in the technology, chemistry, process engineering, modeling and decision support systems, as well as business and entrepreneurial skills, provided by leading experts from academia and industry. Network-wide training was complemented by research training through an individual scientifically ambitious research project generating young professionals that:
• Have an understanding of science, policy drivers, technological solutions and the social science aspects associated with the monitoring and treatment of wastewater;
• Have experience of working on and delivering a research project that is aimed to meet the real needs of industrial sector;
• Have formal training in business skills (including project management, IPR, commercial exploitation of research results) .

The core idea of the TreatRec project is the collaboration between industry (ATKINS and AQUAFIN) and academia (Catalan Institute for Water Research-ICRA and University of Girona) where the two sectors work together to identify research questions. Through this communication the project has identified five main technological and knowledge gaps around which the research programme has been built.
Specific scientific objectives of the TreatRec were the following:
• To evaluate technological feasibility and cost-effectiveness of several advanced treatments focusing on nutrient recovery and removal of emerging contaminants
• To improve scientific understanding of the fate and behavior of understudied emerging microcontaminants during wastewater treatment
• To identify the role of each treatment unit within a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) related to the microcontaminants removal, nitrogen and phosphorous recovery or removal with energy consumption, reliability and performance levels
• To investigate the stress conditions that trigger periods of poor wastewater treatment performance in the context of both present day and future scenarios
• To identify the resilience and robustness of the evaluated technologies against changes of environmental conditions
• To encapsulate process knowledge acquired in the project in the form of a decision support system that will allow decision makers to make more qualified decisions

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work done and the main results achieved are summarized below:
ESR 1. Tackling emerging compounds in WWTP’s. Thesis supervised by AQAFIN, UdG and ICRA
An industrial-scale pilot plant combining a biological activated carbon filter with an ultrafiltration membrane (BioMac) has been designed, built, operated and continuously monitored. The performances of this technology have been investigated focusing specific attention to emerging micropollutants (MPs) removal, in particular Pharmaceutical Active Compounds (PhACs).

ESR 2. Transformation of microcontaminants in wastewater treatment.hesis supervised by ICRA, ATKINS and AQUAFIN
A statistical fingerprinting approach based on LC-HRMS data treatment of wastewater DOM has been developed and tested and the workflow successfully applied to a reverse osmosis, a biological treatment and tertiary treatment involving snad filtration, UV and chlorination.

ESR 3. Optimal configuration of nitrogen and phosphorous recovery schemes within WWTPs.Thesis supervised by UdG and AQUAFIN
A lab-scale one-stage partial nitritation-anammox run on digested sludge liquor unit was successfully assembled and operated. The main attention was paid to the evaluation of the possibility to implement phosphorus recovery after autotrophic nitrogen removal.
P-recovery after the PNA reactor has been successfully tested. The requirements for the recovery of P, N and K after PNA in terms of pH, temperature and Mg2+ dosing were assessed in batch and continuous experiments.


ESR 4. The resilience of wastewater treatment to multiple stress conditions.Thesis supervised by ATKINS and ICRA
A review of resilience at wastewater treatment works has been performed and four key elements have been identified in a resilience assessment: stressors, properties, metrics and measures.
A model-based audit has been performed for the Girona WRRF to assess the ability of current models to provide an objective evaluation of energy reduction strategies. A fully dynamic air distribution model is calibrated for the first time in a full scale application, integrated with a biokinetic process model and a detailed process control model.

ESR 5. Assessment of environmental and socio-economical implications of urban wastewater systems upgrading. Thesis supervised by ICRA, AQUAFIN and UdG
A customized model has been developed in Matlab code which consists of 3 models: the first one estimates concentrations of PhACs at the influent of WWTP’s, the second, estimates the removal of PhACs in WWTP’s and the third, the removal along river stretches

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Recent developments in the area of wastewater treatment and resource recovery technologies provide a fantastic opportunity to develop improved and more efficient treatment of wastewaters, to reduce discharges of microcontaminants in the aquatic environment and ultimately secure a healthier environment for humans. The application of technologies, developed and studied within TreatRec, could help meet the ever increasing regulatory demands that are being placed on water agencies around the world. For these technologies and methods to be effectively adopted, the business and regulatory policy sectors will require professionals who not only have knowledge of processes and technologies, but also of monitoring, environmental contamination, modeling and social science. Important progress in research is frequently associated with interdisciplinary initiatives and insights. This is particularly true in addressing problems of wastewater treatment, which are always interdisciplinary in nature and the information and competence needed to progress research in the field often resides in different sectors. With their multi-sectoral insight, the TreatRec fellows will be able to readily access that information and competence, and hence better progress research. In addition, their training in employing an entrepreneurial approach to research, supported by their training in transferable skills, will equip them to progress research in a directed and efficient fashion.

The project contributed to fill in several technological gaps and knowledge needs such as (i) evaluation of state-of-the art technologies for wastewater treatment upgrade for successful removal of emerging microcontaminants, (ii) getting better insight into transformations of organic matter occurring during wastewater treatment, (iii) identification of the best combination of anaerobic ammonium oxidation plus struvite precipitation to increase the phosphate recovery and to minimise ammonium recycles to the water line, (iv) provision of means to risk assess urban wastewater treatments response to current and future stressors in combination and (v) to provide a Decision support system (DSS) development within the wastewater treatment field by involving from the very beginning industrial partners.

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