Use of Meltblown Nonwoven Fabric Filter for Stormwater Runoff Treatment

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities (e.g., rural urbanization) play major roles in preventing the achievement of sustainable water quality, where eutrophication—the exacerbation of increase in nutrient concentrations combined with warmer temperatures and lower light availability, leading to the dense growth of plant life depleting the amount of available oxygen and killing aquatic life—remains a major challenge for surface water bodies. Filtration mechanisms, with a wide range of applicability, capture common waterborne pathogens as small as 0.1–20.0 μm (bacteria, cysts, spores) and 0.001–0.100 μm (protein, viruses, endotoxins) through the process of microfiltration and ultrafiltration. This study follows the premise of using a designed water flow-through system, with meltblown nonwoven fabrics to measure its performance to capture water contaminant constituents of surface water contamination and eutrophication: total coliforms, nitrate, and orthophosphate. The achieved fabric filtration mechanism showed capture of total coliforms (59%), nitrate (51%), and orthophosphate (46%). The current study provides an alternative solution to more common and traditional water treatment technologies, such as chlorine and ozone disinfection, which (1) introduces disinfection or treatment byproducts and (2) cannot adapt to the permanent changing conditions and newer environmental challenges.