Reliability and efficiency of an advanced tertiary treatment process for wastewater reclamation

Abstract

Abstract A reliability study for the reclamation of wastewater treatment plant effluent using continuous sand filtration-multimedia filtration (CSF-MMF) combined with ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) has been conducted. The objectives of the research are two-fold: (1) effluent of CSF-MMF can be used for surface water supplementation and (2) permeate of UF-RO can be applied as greenhouse irrigation water. The removal efficiencies for nutrients and electric conductivity (EC) as well as some operational parameters of the pilot plant were investigated. The concentration of T-N, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and turbidity in the filtrate of CSF-MMF with external C-course methanol dosage and FeCl3 dosage could be kept at less than 2.2 mg/L, 35 mg/L and 0.9 NTU respectively. Average EC exceeded the required surface water standard by 10% and it was difficult to meet the low surface water standard for T-P (below 0.15 mg/L). The EC of RO permeate was below 20 μS/cm, which was much lower than the standard for greenhouse irrigation. With frequent back flushes, cleaning in place (CIP) and enhanced cleaning the UF could be operated with a constant permeability of 100 L/(m2·h·bar). An appropriate CIP resulted in a recovery of 47–52% of the RO. The protective cartridge filter prior to the RO should be replaced every 2 weeks.