A new approach of simultaneous adsorption and regeneration of activated carbon to address the bottlenecks of pharmaceutical wastewater treatment.

Autor: Qin W; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 2, 117576, Singapore; Hwa Chong Institution (College), 661 Bukit Timah Road, 269734, Singapore., Dong Y; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 2, 117576, Singapore; Hwa Chong Institution (College), 661 Bukit Timah Road, 269734, Singapore., Jiang H; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 2, 117576, Singapore., Loh WH; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 2, 117576, Singapore; NUS Environmental Research Institute, National University of Singapore, #02-03, T-Lab Building 5A Engineering Drive 1, 117411, Singapore., Imbrogno J; Chemical Research & Development, Pfizer Inc., 280 Shennecossett Rd, Groton, CT 06340, United States., Swenson TM; Chemical Research & Development, Pfizer Inc., 280 Shennecossett Rd, Groton, CT 06340, United States., Garcia-Rodriguez O; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 2, 117576, Singapore; NUS Environmental Research Institute, National University of Singapore, #02-03, T-Lab Building 5A Engineering Drive 1, 117411, Singapore. Electronic address: orlando@nus.edu.sg., Lefebvre O; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Water Research, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 2, 117576, Singapore; NUS Environmental Research Institute, National University of Singapore, #02-03, T-Lab Building 5A Engineering Drive 1, 117411, Singapore. Electronic address: ceelop@nus.edu.sg.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Water research [Water Res] 2024 Mar 15; Vol. 252, pp. 121180. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jan 23.
DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2024.121180
Abstrakt: This study proposes a sustainable approach for hard-to-treat wastewater using sintered activated carbon (SAC) both as an adsorption filter and as an electrode, allowing its simultaneous electrochemical regeneration. SAC improves the activated carbon (AC) particle contact and thus the conductivity, while maintaining optimal liquid flow. The process removed 87 % of total organic carbon (TOC) from real high-load (initial TOC of 1625 mg/L) pharmaceutical wastewater (PWW), generated during the manufacturing of azithromycin, in 5 h, without external input of chemicals other than catalytic amounts of Fe(II). Kinetic modelling indicated that adsorption was the dominant process, while concomitant electrochemical degradation of complex organics first converted them to short-chain acids, followed by their full mineralization. In-situ electrochemical regeneration of SAC, taking place at the same time as the treatment, is a key feature of our process, enhancing its performance and ensuring its stable operation over time, while eliminating cleaning downtimes altogether. The energy consumption of this innovative process was remarkably low at 8.0×10 -3  kWh g TOC -1 . This study highlights the potential of SAC for treating hard-to-treat effluents by concurrent adsorption and mineralization of organics.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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