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Description
The project is focused on the elimination of anthropogenic pollution by pharmaceutical substances (especially resistant antibiotics) from wastewater, which leads to the accumulation of unnaturally occurring substances in the environment. At present, wastewater treatment plants do not have technologies that would be able to eliminate these pollutants from wastewater, and are therefore further entrained in the environment (especially in surface water). It is therefore in the general interest to reduce the input of this pollution, thereby protecting itself and the environment. Due to the evident dominance of the input of pharmaceutical substances into the environment from surface sources (wastewater from the population) (Santos et al., 2013), the project intends to eliminate or reduce the input of these substances from the effluents of biological wastewater treatment plants. The project partners will realize field-tests of technologies that have been developed at both sites and promise very effective removal of the contaminants in question from the wastewater.
Summary of project results
In line with the upcoming amendment to Directive 91/271/EEC, Article 8, wastewater treatment will now require an 80% removal efficiency of micropollutants, according to the implementation schedule laid out in the directive. The significance of this project lies in its technical and technological preparedness to meet the new regulatory requirements. Our focus has been on reducing the concentration of key pollutants discharged into the water environment, with the expectation that our developed technology will achieve over a 90% reduction in the levels of these substances in effluent from wastewater treatment plants.
The primary goals of the project were as follows:
- Develop, optimize, and verify a product based on a novel method/technology for removing pharmaceuticals from wastewater during the quaternary treatment stage.
- Develop, verify, and optimize modular technology—tailored to the type of wastewater or pharmaceuticals present—using advanced oxidation processes and the MBBR bioreactor to clean up residues from the oxidative stage of treatment.
- Pilot-test the quaternary treatment unit, known as the "Pharmaceutics-Endocrine Disruptor Removal Objective" (PEDRO), including appropriate treatment methods for addressing undissolved substances.
- Define operational, technical, and economic parameters for individual technology modules as well as for the overall system.
- Accelerate the adoption of highly efficient, advanced pharmaceutical removal technologies in water management, helping to eliminate the impact of unwanted pollutants on aquatic ecosystems.
In the framework of the project, we implemented, optimized and verified technologies for significant improvement in the area of surface water load with pharmaceutical substances and other micropollutants and made the treatment of conventionally treated wastewater more efficient. We implemented, optimized and tested the technology in the form of pilot - plant units at 3 real locations - WWTP Liberec, WWTP of the Amazon commercial zone, WWTP Dobrovíz. At all test locations, we achieved more than a 90% reduction in the concentration of the monitored substances. The obtained results showed that the used and optimized technology of the combination of a special AOP process, MBBR biological reactor and final treatment on the adsorption module can meet the strict effluent parameters and be applicable in practice in accordance with the requirements of the amendment of the European Directive 271/91/EEC, Article 8, quaternary treatment. With technology, we are able to ensure the improvement of water quality in waterways.
The fundamental importance of the project was in the possibility of enable funding for the development of advanced technologies that will find application in fulfilling the objectives set by the European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/60/EC in accordance with the "one health" approach, which aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people and animals and ecosystems. As a result of the project, we have achieved a specific goal in the field of wastewater treatment, namely to ensure a reduction of the monitored micropollutants in wastewater effluents by more than 80%. Given that the timetable for the amendment of Directive 271/91/EEC for target capacities above 150,000 PE and also in some cases above 10,000 PE is spread out until the horizon of 2045, the overlap of the obtained project results is long-term, also from the point of view of its use in waste water treatment technologies as a quaternary stage in the order of tens of years.