Surra E, Paíga P, Baptista I, Jorge R, Marinheiro L, Löblich S, Delerue-Matos C
REQUIMTE/LAQV, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal.
REQUIMTE/LAQV, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Nov;370:122728. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.122728. Epub 2024 Oct 3.
Wastewater effluents are a continuous source of pharmaceuticals in water bodies, which pose a serious environmental threat to aquatic ecosystems. This work provides a comprehensive technical, environmental and cost assessments of different advanced quaternary treatments for wastewater effluents, with special focus on novel Non-Thermal Plasma technology. For this porpouse Non-Thermal Plasma, Sand Filtration + Ozonation, Ultrafiltration, Ultrafiltration + Nanofiltration and Ultrafiltration + Reverse Osmosis technologies were compared with UV disinfection-based technology. This work applies the Life Cycle Analysis tool for the impact environmental assessment using both ReciPE 2016(H) method and, for a more detailed analysis of the contribution of pharmaceuticals to freshwater ecotoxicity category of impact, the USETOX method, which was integrated with 7 new characterisation factors. The results obtained showed overall removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals always higher than 80%, with performances in descending order of Ultrafiltration + Reverse Osmosis > Sand Filtration + Ozonation > Ultrafiltration + Nanofiltration > Non-Thermal Plasma, being Sand Filtration + Ultraviolet disinfection and standalone Ultrafiltration comparatively not suitable for pharmaceuticals removal. Regarding the target pharmaceuticals proposed on the EU Directive 271/91 revision, the Non-Thermal Plasma perform better towards venlafaxine than Sand Filtration + Ozonation, and towards diclofenac and carbamazepine than Ultrafiltration + Nanofiltration. Ultrafiltration + Nanofiltration and Non-Thermal Plasma showed better environmental performance than Sand Filtration + Ozonation and Ultrafiltration + Reverse Osmosis in 7 out of 18 categories of impact (ReciPe method), with Ultrafiltration + Nanofiltration being more advantageous than Non-Thermal Plasma in human and ecotoxicity-related categories of impact, and Non-Thermal Plasma more advantageous in Global Warming, Fossil Resource Scarcity, and Fine Particulate Matter Formation. Regrading Freshwater Ecotoxicity (USEtox method), the quaternary treatment configuration and its energy demand affect the Freshwater final value of impact more than the presence of pharmaceuticals. Under the conditions tested, the Non-Thermal Plasma provided the lower OPEX (0.24 € m) than other tested technologies, showing an interesting compromise between pharmaceuticals removal efficiency, environmental impacts, and economic operational cost.
废水排放是水体中药物的持续来源，对水生生态系统构成严重的环境威胁。这项工作对废水的不同深度四级处理技术进行了全面的技术、环境和成本评估，特别关注新型非热等离子体技术。为此，将非热等离子体、砂滤+臭氧化、超滤、超滤+纳滤和超滤+反渗透技术与基于紫外线消毒的技术进行了比较。这项工作应用生命周期分析工具，使用ReciPE 2016(H)方法进行环境影响评估，并且为了更详细地分析药物对淡水生态毒性影响类别的贡献，使用了与7个新的特征因子相结合的USETOX方法。所得结果表明，药物的总体去除效率始终高于80%，性能从高到低依次为超滤+反渗透>砂滤+臭氧化>超滤+纳滤>非热等离子体，砂滤+紫外线消毒和单独的超滤相对不适合去除药物。对于欧盟指令271/91修订版中提出的目标药物，非热等离子体对文拉法辛的处理效果优于砂滤+臭氧化，对双氯芬酸和卡马西平的处理效果优于超滤+纳滤。在18种影响类别中的7种（ReciPe方法）中，超滤+纳滤和非热等离子体的环境性能优于砂滤+臭氧化和超滤+反渗透，其中超滤+纳滤在与人类和生态毒性相关的影响类别中比非热等离子体更具优势，而非热等离子体在全球变暖、化石资源稀缺和细颗粒物形成方面更具优势。关于淡水生态毒性（USEtox方法），四级处理配置及其能源需求对淡水最终影响值的影响大于药物的存在。在测试条件下，非热等离子体的运营成本（0.24 €/m）低于其他测试技术，在药物去除效率、环境影响和经济运营成本之间展现出了不错的平衡。
