Taboada Santos, AntónBehera, Chitta RanjanSin, GürkanGernaey, Krist V.Mauricio Iglesias, MiguelCarballa Arcos, MartaLema Rodicio, Juan Manuel2020-02-122022-02-032020Taboada-Santos, A., Behera, C., Sin, G., Gernaey, K., Mauricio-Iglesias, M., Carballa, M., & Lema, J. (2020). Assessment of the fate of organic micropollutants in novel wastewater treatment plant configurations through an empirical mechanistic model. Science Of The Total Environment, 716, 137079. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.1370790048-9697http://hdl.handle.net/10347/20721Novel wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are expected to be less energetically demanding than conventional ones. However, scarce information is available about the fate of organic micropollutants (OMPs) in these novel configurations. Therefore, the objective of this work is to assess the fate of OMPs in three novel WWTP configurations by using a plant-wide simulation that integrates multiple units. The difference among the three configurations is the organic carbon preconcentration technology: chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT), high-rate activated sludge (HRAS) combined or not with a rotating belt filter (RBF); followed by a partial-nitritation (PN-AMX) unit. The simulation results show that the three selected novel configurations lead mainly to comparable OMPs removal efficiencies from wastewater, which were similar or lower, depending on the OMP, than those obtained in conventional WWTPs. However, the presence of hydrophobic OMPs in the digested sludge noticeably differs among the three configurations. Whereas the configuration based on sole HRAS to recover organic carbon leads to a lower presence of OMPs in digested sludge than the conventional WWTP, in the other two novel configurations this presence is noticeable higher. In conclusion, novel WWTP configurations do not improve the OMPs elimination from wastewater achieved in conventional ones, but the HRAS-based WWTP configuration leads to the lowest presence in digested sludge so it becomes the most efficient alternativeeng© 2020 Elsevier B.V. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/BiotransformationChemically enhanced primary treatmentHigh-rate activated sludgePlant-wide simulationRotating belt filtersThermal hydrolysisMaterias::Investigación::33 Ciencias tecnológicas::3308 Ingeniería y tecnología del medio ambiente::330810 Tecnología de aguas residualesjournal article10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137079open access