Efficacy of simultaneous advanced oxidation and adsorption for treating municipal wastewater for indirect potable reuse.

The main scope of this study was to compare the efficacy of different advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) combined with adsorption for treating secondary treated effluent of municipal wastewater in a continuous-lab-scale reactor. The results revealed enhanced removal of biological oxygen demand (BOD: C: 14.1 and C: 0 mg L (100%)), chemical oxygen demand (COD: C: 40.5 and C: 4 mg L (≤90%)), and total organic carbon (TOC: C: 15.2 and C: 3.02-3.63 mg L (∼80%)) by UV/PMS, O/PMS, UV/O/HO, and UV/O/MnO processes followed by glass packed bed reactor (GPBR). Complete inactivation of the bacterial count was observed for all the studied processes. The GPBR showed the additional advantage of termination in the regrowth of bacterial count on the filtering medium. The gas-chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis showed that AOP followed by adsorption reduced the concentrations of the by-products in the treated effluent. Overall, the synergy between AOP and adsorption improved the effluent quality to meet various indirect potable reuse (IPR) applications.