Recycled water projects that include some form of potable reuse are becoming more common in the water industry. They are being built to help alleviate water shortages throughout the world by allowing the reuse of available water. Many of these systems utilize membrane processes to remove soluble and insoluble contaminants to produce high quality product streams for reuse. Despite the effectiveness of these systems, for those systems that employ reverse osmosis (RO), the generation of a concentrate stream is a major drawback that is a particular problem for inland facilities that cannot easily discharge this waste to the ocean. The presence of chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) in the concentrate could also be a significant underlying health consideration for final disposal of concentrate to the environment, be it to the ocean or inland disposal. This project focuses on understanding the best way to manage and dispose of concentrate streams containing high levels of emerging contaminants, and doing so in a manner that results in the least impact to the environment. The pilot work, just getting underway, will focus on producing RO concentrate from an MF system operating on primary effluent. This provides an opportunity to capture higher concentrations of CECs from a stream that has not undergone aerobic biological treatment and explore the removal efficiencies of RO under these more challenging conditions. Until now, the focus of direct/indirect potable reuse projects has been on the quality of the recycled water. This study begins to look at how CECs captured by the treatment process may be treated in some way before being released to the environment.
This presentation is available to AMTA Members only.
Speaker
- Graham Juby, PhD, PE / Saied Delagah / Ali Sharbat, PhD / Mojtaba Farrokh Shad
Company
- Carollo Engineers, Inc. / US Bureau of Reclamation / California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Event
- AMTA/AWWA Membrane Technology Conference, Long Beach, CA
Session
- AMTA/AWWA Membrane Technology Conference
Date
- 02/14/17
Media
Keywords
- Research, Reverse Osmosis, Microfiltration, Reuse, Emerging Contaminants, Residuals Disposal
Reference
- 9676-DP1987