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Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 22718

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
CIEMAT-Plataforma Solar de Almería, Almería, Spain
Interests: urban and industrial wastewater treatment technologies; wastewater reuse; solar technologies for wastewater treatment and disinfection; contaminants of emerging concern removal; pathogens removal; acute and chronic toxicity
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Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Nireas-International Water Research Center, (Director), University of Cyprus, P.O. Box 20537, 1678, Nicosia, Cyprus
Interests: water and wastewater treatment and reuse; contaminants of emerging concern; advanced chemical oxidation processes; advanced biological treatment; advanced chromatographic analysis for the identification of microcontaminants in environmental matrices; assessment of the biological potency of microcontaminants and wastewater flows through the application of bioassays; antibiotic resistance in the aquatic environment; uptake of microcontaminants by crops during wastewater reuse

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Guest Editor
Department of Textile and Paper Engineering (DITEXPA), Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain
Interests: advance oxidation processes for wastewater treatment; novel developments for photo-Fenton process

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Guest Editor
Department of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
Interests: drinking water treatment; wastewater treatment; advanced oxidation/reduction processes; carbocatalysis systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Energy and services demand, such as the access to drinking water, focused on social and economic development to improve the well-being and health of the population, has seen an increase in recent years. Such pressure exerted in the last century on natural sources has provoked severe sustainable problems in our planet, where, for 2020 a 50% increase on water consumption is foreseen, as well as that 2/3 of the world’s population will live under hydric stress conditions. These concerns, in combination with the phenomenon of water scarcity, are also increasing in Europe, in the context of a higher drought risk as a clear consequence of climate change. Seventy percent of fresh water in the world is consumed by agriculture activities and 19% by industries, which makes it imperative to find new alternative sources of water, such as the reuse of treated urban wastewater as well as the recycling of industrial wastewater in own production processes.

When focusing on the advanced remediation of industrial wastewater for reusing purposes, a new generation of oxidation technologies must be investigated and developed in combination or integrated with other advanced biological or membrane-based processes after defining specific treatment strategies. The presence of microcontaminants and pathogens also hampers the reuse of urban wastewater treated with conventional biological processes for irrigation in agriculture. Consequently, the potential economic value of this particular water is decreased. This situation strongly calls for the development of remediation techniques to limit the release of these substances in the environment. A series of innovative processes and process combinations with great potential benefit compared to state-of-the-art water technologies must be developed. In both applications, it is crucial to be aware that many arid and semi-arid countries facing water scarcity are well positioned to receive sufficient UV radiation from natural sunlight yearly, enhancing the potential for solar decontamination and disinfection applications. If the use of a renewable energy resource minimizes operating costs, investment costs are largely dependent on technological choices that are to be incorporated as soon as the process design begins, and more particularly at the full scale reactor design step.

The aim of this Special Issue is to gather innovative and highly specialized new treatment technologies and their combination/integration with other advanced processes for the remediation and reuse of industrial and urban wastewater for different final applications, mainly in the own industrial production chain or for irrgation activities. The use of solar energy as a renewable energy will have special consideration, focusing on giving sustainable solutions always based on the green chemistry principle.

Dr. Isabel Oller Alberola
Assoc. Prof. Despo Fatta-Kassinos
Dr. Antonio Arques
Dr. Inmaculada Velo Gala
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Industrial wastewater
  • Urban wastewater
  • Advanced oxidation processes
  • Integrated technologies
  • Membrane systems
  • Advanced biological treatment
  • Contaminants of emerging concern
  • Pathogens
  • Nutrients recovery
  • Renewable energy

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 2762 KiB  
Article
Study of the Photocatalytic Activity of TiO2 and Fe2+ in the Activation of Peroxymonosulfate
by Rodrigo González-Quiles, Juan Manuel de Andrés and Jorge Rodríguez-Chueca
Water 2021, 13(20), 2860; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13202860 - 13 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1995
Abstract
The increase in world population and human activities are leading to an increase in water stress in many regions of the planet, coupled with a decrease in the quality of water bodies. Advanced oxidation processes have demonstrated great potential for the reduction of [...] Read more.
The increase in world population and human activities are leading to an increase in water stress in many regions of the planet, coupled with a decrease in the quality of water bodies. Advanced oxidation processes have demonstrated great potential for the reduction of almost any organic pollutant; however, it is necessary to intensify this type of treatment in order to reduce contact times and to reach a greater number of pollutants. The generation of sulfate radicals by activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) by divalent iron (Fe2+) and/or titanium dioxide (TiO2) were statistically studied to understand the role of these compounds as activators, using methylene blue as target pollutant because of its ease of handling and analysis. A factorial experimental design was used to study the influence of different variables (PMS, Fe2+, and TiO2) in the presence of UV-A or UV-C. There were relevant differences in the discoloration of methylene blue when analyzing the size of the effects and significance of the experiments, when UV-A or UV-C was used, being faster with UV-C. For instance, total discoloration of methylene blue was reached after 60 min with the system PMS/UV-C, while after 90 min only the 59% of methylene blue disappeared in presence of PMS/UV-A. Both Fe2+ and TiO2 in combination with PMS and UV increased the discoloration effect. So, in the presence of Fe2+, total discoloration of methylene blue was observed after 30 min in presence of UV-A, while this yield was reached in 7.5 min under UV-C. In the case of PMS/TiO2, it required 60 min under UV-A radiation to totally remove methylene blue, and around 15 min with UV-C. Statistically, the three variables were observed to have the main effect in combination with UV. Furthermore, the PMS/Fe2+ system has a significant interaction with UV-A and UV-C radiation, while the interaction of PMS/TiO2 was significant under UV-A, but with a negative effect under UV-C, or in other words the high elimination rates observed are achieved by the oxidation potential of UV-C, and the effect of PMS and TiO2 by itself. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse)
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25 pages, 7968 KiB  
Article
Using Long Term Simulations to Understand Heat Transfer Processes during Steady Flow Conditions in Combined Sewers
by Mohamad Abdel-Aal, Simon Tait, Mostafa Mohamed and Alma Schellart
Water 2021, 13(4), 570; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040570 - 23 Feb 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2700
Abstract
This paper describes a new heat transfer parameterisation between wastewater and in-sewer air based on understanding the physical phenomena observed in free surface wastewater and in-sewer air. Long-term wastewater and in-sewer air temperature data were collected and studied to indicate the importance of [...] Read more.
This paper describes a new heat transfer parameterisation between wastewater and in-sewer air based on understanding the physical phenomena observed in free surface wastewater and in-sewer air. Long-term wastewater and in-sewer air temperature data were collected and studied to indicate the importance of considering the heat exchange with in-sewer air and the relevant seasonal changes. The new parameterisation was based on the physical flow condition variations. Accurate modelling of wastewater temperature in linked combined sewers is needed to assess the feasibility of in-sewer heat recovery. Historically, the heat transfer coefficient between wastewater and in-sewer air has been estimated using simple empirical relationships. The newly developed parameterisation was implemented and validated using independent long-term flow and temperature datasets. Predictive accuracy of wastewater temperatures was investigated using a Taylor diagram, where absolute errors and correlations between modelled and observed values were plotted for different site sizes and seasons. The newly developed coefficient improved wastewater temperature modelling accuracy, compared with the older empirical approaches, which resulted in predicting more potential for heat recovery from large sewer networks. For individual locations, the RMSE between observed and predicted temperatures ranged between 0.15 and 0.5 °C with an overall average of 0.27 °C. Previous studies showed higher RMSE ranges, e.g., between 0.12 and 7.8 °C, with overall averages of 0.35, 0.42 and 2 °C. The new coefficient has also provided stable values at various seasons and minimised the number of required model inputs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse)
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12 pages, 2532 KiB  
Article
Magnetic Photocatalyst for Wastewater Tertiary Treatment at Pilot Plant Scale: Disinfection and Enrofloxacin Abatement
by Iván Sciscenko, Sergio Mestre, Javier Climent, Francisco Valero, Carlos Escudero-Oñate, Isabel Oller and Antonio Arques
Water 2021, 13(3), 329; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13030329 - 29 Jan 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3008
Abstract
In this work, we have tested a photocatalytic material consisting of a core of SiO2/Fe3O4 coated with TiO2 (Magnox) for plausible tertiary wastewater treatment. For this, a pilot plant of 45 L equipped with an Ultraviolet light [...] Read more.
In this work, we have tested a photocatalytic material consisting of a core of SiO2/Fe3O4 coated with TiO2 (Magnox) for plausible tertiary wastewater treatment. For this, a pilot plant of 45 L equipped with an Ultraviolet light (UVC) lamp was employed to study the degradation of a model contaminant, enrofloxacin (ENR), as well as water disinfection (elimination of Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens). The influence of different operational conditions was explored by means of dye (rhodamine-B) decolorization rates, analyzing the effects of photocatalyst quantity, pH and recirculation flow rates. The magnox/UVC process was also compared with other four Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs): (i) UVC irradiation alone, (ii) hydrogen peroxide with UVC (H2O2/UVC), (iii) Fenton, and (iv) photo-Fenton. Although UVC irradiation was efficient enough to produce total water disinfection, only when employing the AOPs, significant degradations of ENR were observed, with photo-Fenton being the most efficient process (total enrofloxacin removal in 5 min and c.a. 80% mineralization in 120 min, at pH0 2.8). However, Magnox/UVC has shown great pollutant abatement effectiveness under neutral conditions, with the additional advantage of no acid or H2O2 addition, as well as its plausible reuse and simple separation due to its magnetic properties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse)
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12 pages, 1699 KiB  
Article
The Use of Organic Coagulants in the Primary Precipitation Process at Wastewater Treatment Plants
by Krzysztof Czerwionka, Anna Wilinska and Agnieszka Tuszynska
Water 2020, 12(6), 1650; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12061650 - 9 Jun 2020
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4328
Abstract
Measurements for determining the effect of chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) on the efficiency of pollutant removal from wastewater were carried out using conventional inorganic coagulants PIX113 with polymer A110 (Kemipol, Police, Poland) and unconventional cationic organic coagulants Cofloc (Attana, Coalville, UK) C29510 [...] Read more.
Measurements for determining the effect of chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) on the efficiency of pollutant removal from wastewater were carried out using conventional inorganic coagulants PIX113 with polymer A110 (Kemipol, Police, Poland) and unconventional cationic organic coagulants Cofloc (Attana, Coalville, UK) C29510 (Kemipol, Police, Poland) and Sedifloc 575 (3F Chimica, Sandrigo, Italy). The average removal efficiency in the 2-h sedimentation process was 46%, 34%, 8%, 12% for the total suspended solids, organic matter (COD), total nitrogen, and total phosphorus, respectively. The use of organic coagulants contributed to 14–81% increase of pollutant removal efficiency. Substantial discrepancies in biological nutrient removal processes were not discovered in two-phase (anaerobic-anoxic) experiments without and with the addition of the organic coagulants. The increase in organic matter removal efficiency as a result of the CEPT process may contribute to a 65–80% increase in biogas production. The conducted research confirms the possibility of using organic coagulants in the primary precipitation process in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in accordance with the principles of maximum energy recovery, thereby promoting renewable energy sources. Additionally, organic coagulants, as opposed to inorganic ones, do not cause a significant increase of chloride and sulfate ion concentrations, which facilitates the use of treated wastewater in the water reuse systems, such as irrigation of agricultural crops. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse)
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20 pages, 11852 KiB  
Article
Hydrodynamics of Uasb Reactor Treating Domestic Wastewater: A Three-Dimensional Numerical Study
by Maria G. S. L. Brito, Flávio C. B. Nunes, Hortência L. F. Magalhães, Wanderson M. P. B. Lima, Flávia L. C. Moura, Severino R. Farias Neto and Antonio G. B. Lima
Water 2020, 12(1), 279; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12010279 - 18 Jan 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 5274
Abstract
This work performed a three-dimensional numerical study to describe the hydrodynamics of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor treating domestic wastewater. The simulations were made in the commercial software Ansys CFX®. Different inclinations of the gas deflector were considered, to assess its [...] Read more.
This work performed a three-dimensional numerical study to describe the hydrodynamics of upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor treating domestic wastewater. The simulations were made in the commercial software Ansys CFX®. Different inclinations of the gas deflector were considered, to assess its influence on the velocity field inside the reactor. In order to validate the numerical study, we used experimental data regarding the inflow, the inlet and outlet concentrations of the organic matter, the concentration of solids at the liquid-gas interface and at the reactor outlet, and the pressure field inside it. The comparison between the numerical and experimental results demonstrated small differences. The mathematical model used to describe the hydrodynamics flow in the UASB reactor was quite satisfactory since it adequately has reproduced the physical behavior inside the reactor. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse)
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18 pages, 4921 KiB  
Article
Comparative Study of the Oxidative Degradation of Different 4-Aminobenzene Sulfonamides in Aqueous Solution by Sulfite Activation in the Presence of Fe(0), Fe(II), Fe(III) or Fe(VI)
by A. Acosta-Rangel, M. Sánchez-Polo, M. Rozalen, J. Rivera-Utrilla, A.M.S. Polo and A. J. Mota
Water 2019, 11(11), 2332; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112332 - 7 Nov 2019
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3411
Abstract
This study is focused on advanced oxidation technologies (AOTs) using the combined effect of Fe(0–VI)/sulfite systems, that produce mainly SO4•− radicals, to remove different 4-aminobenzene sulfonamides (SAs), namely sulfamethazine, sulfadiazine, sulfamethizole, from aqueous solutions. Results obtained showed that neither sulfite nor [...] Read more.
This study is focused on advanced oxidation technologies (AOTs) using the combined effect of Fe(0–VI)/sulfite systems, that produce mainly SO4•− radicals, to remove different 4-aminobenzene sulfonamides (SAs), namely sulfamethazine, sulfadiazine, sulfamethizole, from aqueous solutions. Results obtained showed that neither sulfite nor iron alone is able to degrade SAs; however, the combined effect depends on the oxidation state of iron species whose effectiveness to activate sulfite to promote the degradation of SAs increased following this order: Fe(III) < Fe(II) < Fe(0) < Fe(VI). Using Fe(VI)/sulfite, the complete removal of SAs was obtained in 5 min largely surpassing the effectiveness of the other three systems. The sulfonamides’ removal percentage was markedly influenced by sulfite concentration and dissolved oxygen, which improved the generation of oxidant radicals. Response surface methodology was applied, and a quadratic polynomial model was obtained, which allowed us to determine the percentage of SAs degradation as a function of both the iron species and sulfite concentrations. The study of the influence of the water matrix on these AOTs revealed an inhibition of SAs’ removal percentage when using ground water. This is probably due to the presence of different anions, such as HCO3, Cl, and SO42− in relatively high concentrations. According to the byproducts identified, the proposed degradation pathways include hydroxylation, SO2 extrusion, and different bond-cleavage processes. Cytotoxicity of degradation byproducts, using MTS assay with HEK 293 and J774 cell lines for the first time, did not show an inhibition in cell proliferation, sustaining the safety of the process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial and Urban Wastewater Treatment and Reuse)
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