Removal of contaminants of emerging concern and Escherichia coli from effluent using an optimized electrochemical reactor

Ana Rita Ferreira; Paula Guedes; Eduardo P. Mateus; Alexandra B. Ribeiro; Nazaré Couto

doi:10.1016/j.jece.2023.110175

Removal of contaminants of emerging concern and Escherichia coli from effluent using an optimized electrochemical reactor

Ana Rita Ferreira^*, Paula Guedes, Eduardo P. Mateus, Alexandra B. Ribeiro, Nazaré Couto

^*Corresponding author for this work

NOVA University Lisbon

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in wastewater are a matter of great importance as they have a huge environmental impact. This work investigated the electrochemical oxidation (EO) technology as an alternative tertiary treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) aiming to simultaneous remove CECs and Escherichia coli. Platinum titanium (Pt/Ti) and metal mixed oxide (MMO, RuO₂–IrO₂/Ti) electrode materials with different shapes (bar, mesh and circular mesh) were tested. The results obtained showed that removal rate not only depends on CECs structure and physicochemical characteristics, but electrode material and shape play a key role in the whole treatment process. Overall, the removal efficiency increased (20% to 50%) for the recalcitrant CECs when using MMO with the electrode characterized by a higher surface area with a circular-mesh as both anode and cathode. Varying the current intensity had a relatively minor effect on the yield of CECs removal. CECs removals were greater than 90% with simultaneous removal of E. coli within 2 hours. Overall, EO can be considered an eco-friendly process since no reagents were added and has a low estimated treatment cost of 1.1 €/m³.

Original language	English
Article number	110175
Journal	Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering
Volume	11
Issue number	3
Number of pages	10
ISSN	2213-3437
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2023.110175
Publication status	Published - 2023

Bibliographical note

This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 778045; project CEMOWAS2 (SOE2/P5/F0505), co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER); and Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through grant UIDB/04085/2020 (strategic project for CENSE). FCT is also acknowledged for N. Couto (CEECIND/04210/2017) and P. Guedes (CEECIND/01969/2020) contracts established under Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus.

Keywords

Contaminants of emerging concern
Pathogens
Electrode material
Wastewater treatment
Electrochemical reactor
Chemical oxidation

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title = "Removal of contaminants of emerging concern and Escherichia coli from effluent using an optimized electrochemical reactor",

abstract = "Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in wastewater are a matter of great importance as they have a huge environmental impact. This work investigated the electrochemical oxidation (EO) technology as an alternative tertiary treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) aiming to simultaneous remove CECs and Escherichia coli. Platinum titanium (Pt/Ti) and metal mixed oxide (MMO, RuO2–IrO2/Ti) electrode materials with different shapes (bar, mesh and circular mesh) were tested. The results obtained showed that removal rate not only depends on CECs structure and physicochemical characteristics, but electrode material and shape play a key role in the whole treatment process. Overall, the removal efficiency increased (20% to 50%) for the recalcitrant CECs when using MMO with the electrode characterized by a higher surface area with a circular-mesh as both anode and cathode. Varying the current intensity had a relatively minor effect on the yield of CECs removal. CECs removals were greater than 90% with simultaneous removal of E. coli within 2 hours. Overall, EO can be considered an eco-friendly process since no reagents were added and has a low estimated treatment cost of 1.1 €/m3.",

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AU - Couto, Nazaré

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N2 - Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in wastewater are a matter of great importance as they have a huge environmental impact. This work investigated the electrochemical oxidation (EO) technology as an alternative tertiary treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) aiming to simultaneous remove CECs and Escherichia coli. Platinum titanium (Pt/Ti) and metal mixed oxide (MMO, RuO2–IrO2/Ti) electrode materials with different shapes (bar, mesh and circular mesh) were tested. The results obtained showed that removal rate not only depends on CECs structure and physicochemical characteristics, but electrode material and shape play a key role in the whole treatment process. Overall, the removal efficiency increased (20% to 50%) for the recalcitrant CECs when using MMO with the electrode characterized by a higher surface area with a circular-mesh as both anode and cathode. Varying the current intensity had a relatively minor effect on the yield of CECs removal. CECs removals were greater than 90% with simultaneous removal of E. coli within 2 hours. Overall, EO can be considered an eco-friendly process since no reagents were added and has a low estimated treatment cost of 1.1 €/m3.

AB - Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in wastewater are a matter of great importance as they have a huge environmental impact. This work investigated the electrochemical oxidation (EO) technology as an alternative tertiary treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) aiming to simultaneous remove CECs and Escherichia coli. Platinum titanium (Pt/Ti) and metal mixed oxide (MMO, RuO2–IrO2/Ti) electrode materials with different shapes (bar, mesh and circular mesh) were tested. The results obtained showed that removal rate not only depends on CECs structure and physicochemical characteristics, but electrode material and shape play a key role in the whole treatment process. Overall, the removal efficiency increased (20% to 50%) for the recalcitrant CECs when using MMO with the electrode characterized by a higher surface area with a circular-mesh as both anode and cathode. Varying the current intensity had a relatively minor effect on the yield of CECs removal. CECs removals were greater than 90% with simultaneous removal of E. coli within 2 hours. Overall, EO can be considered an eco-friendly process since no reagents were added and has a low estimated treatment cost of 1.1 €/m3.

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KW - Electrode material

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Removal of contaminants of emerging concern and Escherichia coli from effluent using an optimized electrochemical reactor

Abstract

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Keywords

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