Sustainability Archive » Human Health

EDCs in Wastewater Effluent: Impact on Advanced Treatment Costs and Downstream Trout

justin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:48:50 +0000

Snyderville Basin Water Reclamation District (SBWRD) in Park City, Utah, concerned about the impact of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in their effluent on downstream trout populations, funded a study with two main objectives. The first objective was to evaluate the effectiveness and full-scale implementation cost of three EDC treatment technologies (GAC, ozone/peroxide, and UV/peroxide). Results from pilot and bench scale testing showed that GAC and ozone/peroxide were most effective in reducing effluent EDCs. Ozone/peroxide was recommended as the most cost effective treatment technique. The second objective was to investigate the potential of the effluent to cause estrogenicity in trout. Fish held in the effluent showed a measurable increase in vitellogenin, a biomarker of environmental estrogen exposure. However, there was no evidence of an estrogenic impact on downstream fish based on results for vitellogenin and population sex ratios. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings

A Practical Approach for Treatment of APIs and EDCs from Pharmaceutical Wastewater

justin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:26:20 +0000

Effective treatment of wastewater from pharmaceutical manufacturing operations containing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) has become a serious concern. The treatment system used for removing and stabilizing recalcitrant organic compounds in API consists of: (1) Neutralization of wastewater from the Diazotation process; (2) Flow Equalization and Mixing; (3) Micro-filtration using Fundabac Filters; (4) pH adjustment and treatment of the filtered wastewater using Fenton’s Reagent; (5) Coagulation, flocculation and settling in a Lamella Plate Settler, and (6) biological treatment using the fixed-film MBBR process. The chemical pre-treatment was effective in breaking down the API compound. Chemical treatment also removed a significant portion of the organic nitrogen, TOC, COD and BOD7. Subsequent fixed film biological treatment using the MBBR was able to reduce additional organic nitrogen, TOC, COD and BOD7 significantly bring down the concentration below effluent discharge limit. Source: WEFTEC Proceedings 2009