Treatment Of Car Wash Wastewater Research Articles

Bibliometric Insights into Car Wash Wastewater Treatment Research: Trends and Perspectives

Bibliometric Insights into Car Wash Wastewater Treatment Research: Trends and Perspectives

Effects of Alkaline Cleaning Agents on the Long-Term Performance and Aging of Polyethersulfone Ultrafiltration Membranes Applied for Treatment of Car Wash Wastewater.

The commercial ultrafiltration polyethersulfone (PES) membranes (10 and 100 kDa) blended with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) were applied for the filtration of car wash wastewater. Periodical membrane rinsing with water did not prevent fouling and a decrease in permeate flux was observed. Fouling was reduced by washing the membranes with cleaning agents, which are used in car washes to clean wheels and remove insects. In addition to surfactants, these agents contain NaOH, hence the pH value of cleaning solutions was over 11. Long-term contact with such solutions resulted in the removal of PVP from the membrane matrix and an increase in pore size. The PES membranes were soaked in an alkaline solution (pH = 11.5) for 20 months, after which the 200 kDa dextran rejection decreased from 95% to 80%. To compare with the static degradation conditions, 8 weeks of alkaline agent filtration was realized, after which the dextran (200 kDa) rejection decreased below 50%. This indicated that the cross-flow of alkaline agents can accelerate the removal of components building the membrane matrix. Despite membrane degradation, the separation efficiency (the rejection of chemical oxygen demand-COD, turbidity, and surfactants) during the treatment of synthetic car wash wastewater was similar to that obtained for pristine membranes.

Harnessing graphene oxide-enhanced composite metal-organic frameworks for efficient wastewater treatment

The issue of carwash wastewater emerges as a pressing environmental concern on a global scale, primarily due to the intricate nature of its pollutants, which makes effective treatment a formidable challenge. In the face of this complex scenario, the pursuit of an efficient treatment methodology assumes paramount importance. In response to this complex scenario, this study embarked on an exploration of a novel polymeric adsorbent material synthesized from Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-67, Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8, Polyethersulfone, and graphene oxide in a fixed-bed treatment system for carwash wastewater. The investigation encompassed three distinct filter column depths, measuring 8 cm, 12 cm, and 16 cm, respectively. With an increase in filter depth from 8 cm to 16 cm, notable improvements were observed in the removal efficiencies for most contaminants. Notably, oils/grease removal showed an increasing trend with column depth, reaching 95.4%, 98.6%, and 100% for 8 cm, 12 cm, and 16 cm depths, respectively. TSS and Turbidity removal efficiencies remained consistently high at 100% across all depths, showcasing effective removal of solid particulate matter. Copper and Zinc removal efficiencies increased with deeper column depths, reaching values of 80.4%–89.9% and 79.6%–90.3%, respectively. Surfactants exhibited efficient removal, with values ranging from 90.6% to 96.6%. Total Dissolved Solids removal efficiency increased from 71.6% to 83.4% as column depth increased. Similarly, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Biochemical Oxygen Demand, total organic carbon, and phosphates removal efficiencies showed improvement with increasing column depth, reaching values of 95.4%, 98.3%, 98.8%, and 89.3%, respectively. Moreover, The composite MOF beads demonstrated significant adsorption capacities in carwash wastewater treatment, with a noteworthy 35.08 mg/g for Oils/Grease and 28.12 mg/g for Biochemical Oxygen Demand, highlighting their efficiency in removing hydrophobic contaminants and organic pollutants.The derived results highlight the potential of the composite material for carwash wastewater treatment towards advancing the field of wastewater treatment.

Hybrid-process including electrocoagulation for the real carwash wastewater treatment using a new continuous undivided tubular reactor

A coagulation-based continuous tubular electrochemical reactor has been designed to treat real carwash wastewater in a flow rate of 100 mL/min. This reactor made of an ordinary iron tube cathode with a commercial aluminum rod anode at the center. Equipment and chemicals needed for this method can be easily and cheaply obtained through non-scientific commercial sources. The one-factor at a time approach was used to investigate the effects of operating variables. Current density, flow rate, electrolysis time and electrode material were selected as independent variables while COD removal was considered as the response function. The experimental results showed that the proposed method can remove 89 % of COD from 10 liters of carwash wastewater in a "single-pass" and more than 99 % in a "double-pass" through the flow reactor. This reactor has short treatment time, low energy consumption, favorable mass transfer and low ohmic drop and does not need to adjust the pH or add electrolyte additionally to save costs. Also, this approach is resistant to undesirable phenomena such as passivation of the electrode surface, cell polarization, electrode surface fouling and reduction of electrical conductivity that may occur during electrolysis. The treated wastewater can be reused in the carwash industry as well as for irrigated agriculture.

Application of polypropylene microfiltration membranes for separation of wastewater from car wash

In the final stage of washing the car is waxed and rinsed with demineralized water, however, at an initial stage reusing treated effluents as process water is possible. In the current work, the application of microfiltration (MF) polypropylene (PP) membranes for treatment of carwash wastewater was investigated. To compare the transport properties, more hydrophobic PTFE capillary membranes were also used. The examined process is restricted by the fouling phenomenon, which has been thoroughly studied by filtering both the synthetic and real wastewaters. The use of different types of foaming agents and hydrowaxes, allowed to found that the membranes fouling was caused not only by the impurities removed from the car, but also by the mixtures of commercial washing agents. As a result, the permeate flux was quickly reduced, to a level of 100–200 LHM for PP membrane and to 50–150 LHM for PTFE membrane (TMP = 0.05 MPa). Regardless of the degree of feed contamination, the clean permeate with turbidity of 0.2–0.8 NTU was obtained. In the case PTFE membrane, the permeate turbidity was at a level of 2–3 NTU. The tested wastewaters (5–100 NTU) contained the particles with the size in the range of 0.1–400 μm. The removal of larger particles by prefiltration was found to increase the membranes fouling. It has been noted that rinsing the modules with water was not effective. Nevertheless, the membranes were cleaned using alkaline solutions (pH = 11.5–12.0) used at the car wash station to remove insects and to wash the wheel. This procedure was less effective for PTFE membranes, which experienced significantly greater irreversible fouling. It has been shown that the PP membranes used, in addition to removing turbidity, ensured the retention of Escherichia coli in almost 100%.

Car wash wastewater treatment combination: A systematic review

Car wash wastewater is a source of water pollution. Processing car wash waste is crucial to prevent environmental pollution. In this issue, car wash treatment has the potential to sustain of clean water. However, the effective treatment of car wash wastewater is still being determined, complicated to solve, limited resource capabilities, inadequate surrounding environmental support, and very expensive processing costs. This systematic review paper aims to review the combination technology of car wash wastewater treatment systematically. A literature survey was conducted, and 11 research articles were found suitable for inclusion in the investigation, which extracted information, country of origin, and method used. The best 8 of 11 articles were removed as secondary data for writing this manuscript to be included in the analysis table. Studies on flocculation-column-flotation, coagulation-flocculation, ultra-microfiltration, coagulation-flocculation, electrocoagulation, sedimentation-filtration, filtration-ozonation, electrocoagulation-adsorption, and each n=1. This systematic review shows that ultrafiltration and microfiltration membrane treatment methods effectively remove pollutants from car wash wastewater.

Treatability Study of Car Wash Wastewater Using Upgraded Physical Technique with Sustainable Flocculant

Grease, oil, hydrocarbon residues, heavy metals, and surfactants are all present in car wash wastewater (CWW), which all can have detrimental effects on the environment and human health. This study was designed to assess CWW treatment using an upgraded physical technique combined with a range of conventional and more sustainable coagulants. Physical treatment effectively lowered the oil and grease (O&G) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the CWW by 79 ± 15% and 97 ± 1.6%, respectively. Additional treatment was provided using chemical coagulation–flocculation–settling. In jar test studies, humic acid (HA) and alum were found to provide significantly higher turbidity removal, 79.2 ± 3.1% and 69.8 ± 8.0%, respectively, than anionic polyacrylamide (APA), 7.9 ± 5.6% under influent turbidity values from 89 to 1000 NTU. Overall physical/chemical treatment of CWW yielded 97.3 ± 0.8% COD removal, and 99.2 ± 0.4% O&G removal using HA and alum. Due to the numerous problems created when using synthetic coagulants, naturally occurring coagulants that have no impact on human health, such as HA, are highly desirable options. The findings of this study show that treating CWW provides several advantages for sustainable development, health and well-being, and raising public knowledge and support for water reuse.

Improvement of bioenergy generation using innovative application of food waste materials for coating carbon nanotubes-loaded bioanode in 3D-microbial fuel cells

In this study, an innovative use of date seeds and banana peels wastes coupled with multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was applied for the first time for coating the anodic electrodes in 3D-MFCs to improve power generation. Two of identically styled and designed dual chamber 3D-MFCs were set up and operated in a continuous manner for simultaneous treatment of carwash wastewater and energy recovery. Both MFCs were packed with acid activated irregular-shaped graphite granules (ISGG) coated with MWCNTs coupled with date seeds powder in 3D-MFC1 and with banana peels powder in 3D-MFC2. The results revealed that maximum elimination efficiencies of COD, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), as well as oil and grease (O&G) were 99.4%, 99.9% and 98.2%, respectively in the 3D-MFC1 while they were 96.8%, 99.9% and 93.9%, respectively in the 3D-MFC2. Maximum power density of 1072 mW/m3 and 730 mW/m3 were observed in the 3D-MFC1 and 3D-MFC2, respectively.

Membrane techniques for removal detergents and petroleum products from carwash effluents: a review

One of the most significant urban services is the carwash, which generates large amounts of wastewater containing a variety of pollutants, including sand, gravel, suspended solids, surfactants, oil products, diesel cleaners, etc., that may cause environmental pollution when transferred to the sewage system without any treatment. The effective treatment is crucial to prevent environmental pollution as well as to recycle the water source. Contaminants are removed from carwash effluent using a variety of treatment technologies. This review focuses on identifying and comparing efficiency of using advanced commercial and modified membrane filtration techniques, meeting discharge standard regulations, to treat carwash impurities, especially detergents/surfactants (anionic surfactant) and petroleum products (oil/grease). The results of this review indicate that ultrafiltration membrane (UF) is the most common membrane filtration technology for carwash wastewater treatment. Additionally, the adoption of traditional pre-treatment processes may be advantageous before utilization of membrane process for treating carwash wastewater; although conventional treatment processes can produce a high quality of effluent, they are less effective than membrane systems.

Bio-coagulation using Cicer arietinum combined with pyrolyzed residual sludge-based adsorption for carwash wastewater treatment: A techno-economic and sustainable approach

The physico-chemical treatment of automobile service station wastewater (ASSW) generates large amounts of sludge with toxic compounds, requiring sustainable management practices to protect the environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to maintain the dual benefit of pollution reduction and biochar production via treating ASSW with an integrated coagulation/flocculation/adsorption and sludge pyrolysis system. Using Cicer arietinum powder as bio-coagulant, the optimum coagulation/flocculation factors were pH = 4, flash mixing speed = 170 rpm, and coagulant dosage = 2.26 g/L. This condition provided removal efficiencies of 88.35 ± 4.10 %, 60.30 ± 3.10 %, and 54.25 ± 2.81 % for turbidity, surfactant, and chemical oxygen demand (COD), respectively. Adsorption and inter-particle bridging were the main removal mechanisms involved in treating ASSW using C. arietinum, compared with sweep flocculation using alum. Sludge containing the C. arietinum bio-coagulant was subjected to thermal treatment by pyrolysis to synthesize biochar. This sludge-derived biochar showed promising pore size distribution, and surface morphology and functional groups. Biochar was used as an adsorbent to post-treat ASSW in a fixed-bed column with continuous feed, and the Thomas model exhibited a breakthrough time of 533 min for a designed flow rate of 30 m3/d. The overall removal efficiencies of turbidity, surfactants, and COD for the combined system reached almost 100 %, 99.93 ± 4.31 %, and 93.35 ± 3.88 %, respectively. The integrated physico-chemical and pyrolysis process showed a profitability scenario through wastewater reuse in carwash bays and biochar selling, maintaining a payback period of 5.8 yr.

Fered-Fenton treatment of car wash wastewater using carbon felt cathode: Carbon dissolution and cathodic corrosion

The Fered-Fenton (FF) process has the potential to oxidize organic pollutants in car wash wastewater (CWW) nonselectively. As a high-quality gas diffusion cathode, carbon felt (CF) is perhaps one of the most widely used carbon cathodes in FF process. Although thermodynamic instability has been found, there are no clear reports on the negative effects on organics evolution and possible ways of cathodic corrosion of CF. This study first report the carbon dissolution and cathodic corrosion of CF cathode and revealed a possible corrosion pathway. An FF system using carbon felt cathode was constructed that can effectively remove chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC) and linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) of CWW in 120 min. During electrolysis, carbon dissolution of the CF cathode leads to the accumulation of organic carbon. Toxic organic intermediates were detected and negatively affected biodegradability and acute cytotoxicity. The main cause of cathodic corrosion was the electroreduction of carbon species on CF. Hydrogen peroxide indirectly promoted the corrosion process by consuming reducing carbon species. Optimizing the appropriate electrolysis time (such as 60 min) or using a more stable graphite felt (GF) cathode as an alternative is the recommended strategy. This work provides new insight and technical support for the FF process with CF cathode.

A Review of On-Site Carwash Wastewater Treatment

In recent years, people’s environmental awareness has increased. The high density of the urban population has caused a considerable increase in the demand for car washing services, which has created large quantities of car wash wastewater. The main pollutants in car wash wastewater are detergents, dirt, oil, and grease. Untreated wastewater released into rainwater sewer systems or other water bodies may pollute the water and generate excessive bubble foams, which negatively affects urban appearance. Car washes are divided into mechanical car washes and manual or self-service car washes. In general, car washes have a small operation and scale, occupy limited land, and cannot afford wastewater treatment costs. Therefore, most car washes are not equipped with wastewater treatment facilities. Consequently, the discharge of wastewater from car washes negatively affects the water quality in the surrounding environment and results in wasteful use of water resources. This study reviewed 68 research papers on the quality, treatment techniques, treatment costs, and treatment effectiveness of car wash wastewater to provide a reference for car wash operators to contribute to the preservation of water resources. We found that there is a higher chance of recycling car wash wastewater when combing two different techniques for car wash wastewater treatment.

Transition towards Sustainable Carwash Wastewater Management: Trends and Enabling Technologies at Global Scale

Carwash wastewater (CWW) contains grease, oil, hydrocarbon residues, heavy metals, and surfactants, posing severe impacts to the environment and human health. Accordingly, various physical, chemical, and biological processes for CWW treatment have been demonstrated in recent research. In this study, a bibliometric approach was performed to comprehensively illustrate the recent progress, current direction, and future perspectives of CWW-related research. A keyword co-occurrence network was used to represent the results of the bibliometric analysis and to show the major pollutants in CWW effluents and the common systems for treating CWW via coagulation/flocculation, electrochemical, oxidation, membrane, adsorption, biological, and hybrid methods. An integrated anaerobic digestion/oxidation process has been reported to degrade CWW-associated pollutants and help develop an energy-efficient approach for waste management. The results demonstrated that the treatment of CWW has several benefits relevant to sustainable development, viz., good health and well-being, protection of life below water, bioenergy generation, and community awareness and acceptance towards wastewater reuse. Hence, these benefits could assist in meeting the environmental, economic, and social sustainable development goals (SDGs). These study outputs can encourage policymakers and stakeholders in implementing sensible regulations that control water usage and treatment in car sharing and personal vehicle services to either directly or indirectly adopt the agenda 2030 with its seventeen SDGs.

A Study of Car Wash Wastewater Treatment by Cyclo-Flow Filtration

With the increase in transportation demand and facilities in this era and the significant improvement in people’s living standards, the annual production and sales of vehicles are steadily increasing. With this, the issues of car wash wastewater treatment and water pollution are becoming more and more serious. Car wash wastewater mainly comprises fine sand, slick oil, suspended solids (SS), and surfactants, and can be quantified as chemical oxygen demand (COD) on a normative basis. This study examines the use of cyclo-flow filtration with high filtrate flux to treat car wash wastewater to solve issue of limited space in metropolitan areas and increase the willingness of the industry to invest in car wash equipment to recover water resources. The average removal rates of SS and COD are about 81% and 43%, respectively. Compared with current technology, the price of recycled water can compensate for operating costs, requiring minimal operating space owing to the single-unit cyclo-flow filtration system.

Fered-Fenton Treatment of Car Wash Wastewater Using Carbon Felt Cathode: Carbon Dissolution and Cathodic Corrosion

Fered-Fenton Treatment of Car Wash Wastewater Using Carbon Felt Cathode: Carbon Dissolution and Cathodic Corrosion

Important Parameters of Ceramic Membranes Derived from Oasis Waste and Its Application for Car Wash Wastewater Treatment

The purpose of this study is to find the best parameters, which are the oasis waste concentration, molding pressure, and sintering temperature for the fabrication of ceramic membrane to be used in the treatment of car wash wastewater. These membranes were prepared from clay and oasis waste using the semidry-pressing process. Characterization of these membranes was done by the determination of their porosity, contact angle, and shrinkage. Following the experiments, we notice that when the oasis waste concentration goes from 8% to 22%, the membranes become more hydrophilic. The same evolution is observed when the sintering temperature and molding pressure increase from 700 to 900°C, and eight to 12 bars, respectively. Moreover, membrane porosity increases with the increase of sintering temperature and oasis waste concentration by 14.6% and 49.3%, respectively. In addition, permeate flux is proportional to the oasis waste concentration and the sintering temperature. The highest flux increase is 62.2% for the case of 15% of oasis waste concentration, while a drop of 23.8% for permeate flux is recorded with the rise of molding pressure. After determining the membrane specific volume, which complies with the Tunisian standards NT.106.002, the best experimental parameters for the membrane fabrication are found to be: (i) 22% of oasis waste concentration, (ii) 800°C for sintering temperature, and (iii) Eight bars for molding pressure. After 30 minutes of the experimentation of wastewater treatment of car wash using the best membrane, an oil rejection of 93% and permeate flux of 116× 10-6 m3/m²s could be achieved.

Assessment of carwash wastewater reclamation potential based on household water treatment technologies

This paper assesses a bench-scale carwash wastewater treatment system's removal efficiency based on coagulation-flocculation and a household-type activated carbon filter and water ozonator. For the experiment, the wastewater that went through an oil/water separator (OWS) from a medium-sized carwash facility located in a dense commercial area in Barranquilla, Colombia, was collected. The study evaluates the following parameters: water quality indicators recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and literature related to carwash water reclamation. The treatment results are compared to related regional studies in Latin America and Colombian legislation in force. Experimental results evidence that reclaimed water's characteristics are similar to those of a groundwater source for most analyzed variables, and the system was able to reduce organic matter concentrations considerably. Regarding the organoleptic characteristics, the system eliminated foaming and generated a transparent and odorless product. The coliform test showed that reclaimed water has an average total coliform count of around 5800 MPN/100 ml, which is above the proposed health risk limit per most international standards for water reuse; but as it complies with industrial wastewater and non-food irrigation purposes in Colombia, additional disinfection is recommended depending on the reuse purpose. The results from this research may assist future carwash wastewater reclamation regulations in Colombia and the Latin American region.

Effectiveness of potassium ferrate (VI) as a green agent in the treatment and disinfection of carwash wastewater.

Carwash wastewater treatment with potassium ferrate (VI) (K2FeO4) was optimized by response surface methodology. The optimum conditions for chemical oxygen demand removal were established a pH 3.5, 0.328 g/L dose of K2FeO4, and with a process duration of 48 min. At these conditions, chemical oxygen demand, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus decreased by 70.3, 58.9, 73.3, 82.0%, respectively; and the putrid odor was reduced. Simultaneously, the total viable count, total coli count, most probable number of fecal enterococci, and the total proteolytic bacteria count decreased by 89.5, 93.1, 92.9, and 95.0 %, respectively. Comparatively, an application of 0.450 g/L FeCl3·6H2O corresponding to the iron content in 0.328 g/L of K2FeO4 resulted in a decrease of total viable count, total coli count, most probable number of fecal enterococci and the total proteolytic bacteria count only by 38.1, 31.2, 42.9, and 58.0%, respectively. Therefore, flocculation with polyacrylamide anionic flocculant combined with potassium ferrate (VI) oxidation is a more effective alternative to coagulation with FeCl3 and the same flocculant. The use of potassium ferrate (VI) is a viable option for the treatment of carwash wastewater.

Exploring the Potential in LID Technologies for Remediating Heavy Metals in Carwash Wastewater

Carwash wastewater (CWW) can be a significant source of environmental pollution due to the diversity and high concentrations of contaminants it contains. This toxic wastewater can contain several different heavy metals that if left untreated, can enter surface and sub-surface waters. Innovative, nature-based solutions such as low-impact development (LID) technologies may provide an eco-friendly CWW treatment process that is both effective and affordable. This research reviews the available literature to provide definitive values of flowrate and contaminant concentrations found in CWW around the globe. Dividing LID technologies into two groups, vegetated and unvegetated systems, the authors explored the literature for the general performance of these technologies to sustainably treat heavy metals in CWW. Depending on the car wash’s size and intended purpose, whether cleaning vehicles in agriculture-based rural communities, mining, or in high-density urban environments, volumetric flowrates requiring treatment found in six different countries ranged from 35–400 L/car. CWW also contains a wide range of contaminants at various levels, including COD, turbidity, TDS and TSS, surfactants, oils and greases, and heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, chromium, and iron. Heavy metal removal by both vegetated and unvegetated LIDs shows mixed results in the literature, but given the different processes involved in both types, the authors propose a system that combines these types in order to provide all the necessary removal processes, including mechanical filtration, adsorption, sedimentation, chemical and biological treatment processes.

SARS-CoV-2: fate in water environments and sewage surveillance as an early warning system.

The carwash is known as one of the most important urban services that brings about the production of huge volume of wastewater with high turbidity and high chemical oxygen demand (COD). Seasonal and carwash location features affect the quality of carwash wastewater. Various methods with special focus on chemical processes have been employed for carwash wastewater treatment and eliminating different pollutants from this wastewater of great concern for the environment. This review was conducted for identifying and comparing the efficiency of chemical processes for carwash wastewater treatment. To this aim, key words were identified and a search protocol was defined to search studies in three databases: Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed. The results of this systematic review indicated that coagulation (66%) is the most common chemical processes for carwash wastewater treatment. Although chemical processes are able to reduce the turbidity and COD over 80%. Due to the characteristics of carwash wastewater, chemical processes are a necessary pretreatment for processes such as membrane technology. Rapid treatment and high efficiency are the advantages of wastewater treatment by chemical methods, but the energy consumption and sludge volume are two main factors in selection the chemical processes for carwash wastewater treatment.