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Description
Our goal is to test in operation methods for reducing water pollution in the form of drug residues. In the project, we will use oxidation processes based on ozonation and technologies close to nature, such as artificial wetlands or biofilters, to purify water. The project will be implemented at two selected locations - the wastewater treatment plant in Blansko and the Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine in Brno. The aim of the project is to reduce this pollution by at least eighty percent.
The Norwegian partner in the project is the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), which is a leading institute for basic and applied marine and freshwater research in Norway. NIVA''s global expertise is multidisciplinary and has a wide scientific scope. NIVA team members are leading experts in water treatment technology, drug analysis, and their involvement will significantly help in achieving project outcomes. Based on its experience, NIVA will collaborate on the design of the demonstration unit, perform expert supervision of the installation and testing process, and collaborate on the analysis of the measured data. During the project, 4 work visits between the Czech project partners (VUT Brno, ALS Czech Republic s.r.o.) and the Norwegian project partner (NIVA) will be realized.
Summary of project results
The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in water and in the environment in general is currently a frequently addressed issue not only among professionals but also among the lay public, which is more interested in the state of the environment. The seriousness of this trend is also supported by the upcoming legislative regulations, the purpose of which is to prevent the ingress of drugs into the aquatic environment and to protect the environment. The key piece of legislation being prepared to prevent pharmaceutical pollution is the Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and Council concerning Urban Wastewater Treatment, which will require wastewater treatment plants (which have been identified as the main source of pharmaceuticals entering the environment) of a certain size to remove pharmaceuticals. In the project, we directly focused on the use of ozonation technology, which, thanks to its oxidation capabilities, is suitable for the degradation of persistent pharmaceuticals, and the possibilities of optimal operation of technologies for the reduction of drugs in real time. The goal of the project was to demonstrate, through long-term testing, the effectiveness of ozonation technology in combination with nature-based solutions to remove drug residues from sewage treatment plant effluents and to test innovative ways of managing drug reduction technologies
In the project, we implemented long-term testing of ozonation in real conditions at demonstration sites of wastewater treatment plants in Blansko and the campus of the Veterinary University in Brno, during which a total of 80% removal of the monitored pharmaceuticals between the inflow and outflow of the WWTP was achieved. This goal of pharmaceutical removal is the target proposed value of the upcoming European directive. In the project, we also successfully tested an innovative method of controlling the ozonation technology, which was based on monitoring the actual level of pharmaceuticals reduction using a surrogate spectral parameter of absorbance at a wavelength of 254 nm. In the project, we successfully demonstrated and proved that the use of ozonation in combination with nature-based solutions as the next stage of treatment at wastewater treatment plants leads to a noticeable reduction of pharmaceuticals from WWTP effluents, which prevents their entrance into the environment.
The output of the project is a set of knowledge from long-term testing of ozonation for the reduction of pharmaceuticals from WWTP effluents and from testing an innovative method of operation for this technology in real time. This knowledge was disseminated among the general and professional public at organized seminars and conference lectures. The primary addressees of the project results are mainly the owners and operators of sewerage systems, who are currently looking for innovative solutions to adapt to the new legislative regulations regarding the reduction of pharmaceutical pollution at wastewater treatment plants.
The project proved that ozonation in combination with nature-based solutions could reliably achieve the future proposed level of pharmaceutical removal and provided a wide database of data for the design and operation of these technologies in full operation.
Summary of bilateral results
The Norwegian partner brought to the project his experience from similar scientific research projects on the issue of the occurrence of micropollutants in water and methods of their reduction, which they have been working on for a long time. The contribution of the Norwegian partner was mainly in the creation of quality methodologies for demonstration testing and evaluation of measured data.The main result of the bilateral cooperation is the extensive data set obtained from the demonstration testing, which was created only thanks to the close cooperation of all project partners. The knowledge gained is summarized in a summary research report and will be disseminated in the form of upcoming articles in peer-reviewed international journals.Forthcoming, we are planning three to four publications in peer-reviewed foreign journals with our Norwegian partner, in which we will present the results of the project. Furthermore, we have agreed with our Norwegian partner on cooperation in the field of solving the problem of the occurrence of micropollutants and innovative technologies for their reduction.