Abstract
Reclamation and reuse of wastewater are increasingly viewed as a pragmatic tool for water conservation. Greywater, which includes water from baths, washing machines, dishwashers, and kitchen sinks, is a dilute wastewater stream, making it an attractive stream for extraction of non-potable water. However, most previous studies primarily focused on passively aerated biological and physicochemical treatment processes for greywater treatment. Here, we investigated an integrated process of a microbial electrochemical cell (MEC) followed by granular activated carbon (GAC) biofilter for greywater treatment. The integrated system could achieve 99.3% removal of total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD) and 98.7% removal of the anionic surfactants (linear alkylbenzene sulphonates) from synthetic greywater at a total hydraulic residence time (HRT) of 25 h (1 day for MEC and 1 h for GAC biofilter). For one-day HRT, the maximum peak volumetric current density from MEC was 0.65 A/m3, which was comparable to that achieved at four-day HRT (0.66 A/m3). The adsorption by GAC was identified as a key mechanism for the removal of organics and surfactants. In addition, recirculation of liquid within the GAC biofilter was identified as a critical factor in achieving high-rate treatment. Although results indicated that GAC biofilter could be a standalone process for greywater, MEC can provide an opportunity for potential energy recovery from greywater. However, further studies should focus on developing high-rate MECs with higher energy recovery potential for practical operation.
Highlights
Greywater is defined as the used water from all domestic water-related activities, accounts for 50–70% of the wastewater generated in urban areas [1]
The effluent concentration of surfactants slightly increased to 1.88 mg/L. For both hydraulic residence time (HRT), acetate concentration was
The results of this study demonstrated that an integrated treatment system of MEC
Summary
Greywater is defined as the used water from all domestic water-related activities (excluding stream generated from the toilet), accounts for 50–70% of the wastewater generated in urban areas [1]. Due to low levels of organics and biological contaminants, greywater is considered as an attractive stream for reclaim, recycle, and reuse for nonpotable purposes, including toilet flushing, landscape irrigation, and groundwater aquifer recharge [2,3,4,5,6]. Various simple to advanced treatment systems, such as biofilter, constructed wetland, and different physicochemical processes (e.g., flocculation, membrane, etc.) have been investigated for greywater [8,9,10,11,12,13]. The removal of surfactants is a critical concern in greywater treatment
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