Hazardous organic compounds (e.g., 1,4-dioxane, dyes, etc) and pathogens remain in municipal and industrial wastewater effluents after biological treatment. In recent years, much attention was paid into electrochemical oxidation processes with developing and testing various electrode materials. The focus of this research was to integrate and investigate electrochemical oxidation and membrane filtration for removal of organic and microbial contaminants from wastewater. Several different types of feed wastewater were used, such as artificial 1,4-dioxane solution, real chemical industry wastewater, and municipal wastewater. Approximately 50% of the 1,4-dioxane present in synthetic solution was removed within 30 h, corresponding to 40% removal in COD. When real chemical industry wastewater was fed instead, the 1,4-dioxane removal efficiency reached 40% corresponding to the COD removal efficiency of ~60%. The greater COD removal with the real wastewater was possibly due to readily degradable fraction of the organic substances present in it. When municipal wastewater effluent containing dyes were further treated by electrochemically enhanced microfiltration (EEM), &gt;80% of the color was removed within 5 h at an electrical current of 0.5 A/L. Without electricity, no color removal was observed. The turbidity removal occurred immediately by the membrane itself and further removal (approximately 5-10%) was achieved by electrochemical reactions. Although the transmembrane pressure increased up to 15 kPa during 15-h operation without electricity, no pressure build-up occurred at an electrical current of 0.5 A/L. It is thus believed that electrochemical oxidation process plays a role in mitigating membrane fouling during microfiltration of municipal wastewater effluent. Extended studies including field tests are needed to further verify the performance of EEM systems for advanced wastewater treatment.

Electrochemically enhanced microfiltration for water detoxification and fouling control in advanced wastewater treatment

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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