RT Journal Article
T1 Integrating granular activated carbon in the post-treatment of membrane and settler effluents to improve organic micropollutants removal
A1 Paredes Barro, Lidia
A1 Alfonsín Outeda, Carolina
A1 Allegue Martínez, Tomás Francisco
A1 Omil Prieto, Francisco
A1 Carballa Arcos, Marta
K1 Granular activated carbon
K1 Holistic assessment
K1 Membrane effluent
K1 Pharmaceuticals
K1 Settler effluent
AB Granular activated carbon (GAC) is applied as post-treatment technology in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in order to increase the elimination of organic micropollutants (OMPs). However, the efficiency and life-time of GAC depend on several parameters, such as the quality of the effluent to be treated or the type of GAC. In the present paper, two types of GAC, based on bituminous carbon (BC-GAC) and coconut shell (CS-GAC), were assessed from a technical, economic and environmental point of view to further remove OMPs present in two secondary effluents, coming from integrated biological systems with a membrane or a settler, respectively. Although all GAC filters were efficient in removing selected OMPs, the quality of the secondary effluent had a strong influence on the lifespan of adsorbent material and the technical operability of the filtration systems. While GAC filters treating membrane effluent were highly effective to remove recalcitrant compounds, such as carbamazepine and diazepam (>80%), even after 430 d of operation (>30,800 BV), the efficiency of GAC filters treating settler effluent quickly lowered to 50% after 100 d of operation (<7200 BV). Both types of GAC showed similar adsorption capacities and only slight differences were found in terms of costs (2.4 €/kg vs 2.7 €/kg). However, CS-GAC has a lower carbon footprint than BC-GAC, mainly due to the more environmentally friendly production process of CS-GAC
PB Elsevier
SN 1385-8947
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/25102
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/25102
LA eng
NO Chemical Engineering Journal, 345 (2018), 79-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2018.03.120
NO This research was supported by the Spanish Government (AEI – Spain) through the projects HOLSIA (CTM2013-46750-R) and COMETT (CTQ2016-80847-R). The authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group GRC ED431C2017/29 and to the CRETUS Strategic Partnership (AGRUP2015/02). All these programmes are co-funded by FEDER (EU)
DS Minerva
RD 27 abr 2026