Photo- and Electrochemical Water Treatment: For the Removal of Contaminants of Emerging Concern
Chapter 14: Circular Economy in Wastewater: Evaluating Emerging Contaminants-removal Technologies in Wastewater Treatment Plants
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Published:21 Dec 2022
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Special Collection: 2022 ebook collectionSeries: Chemistry in the Environment
Lakshay Tyagi, Guneshwari Yerulker, Riya Shankar, Asha Lalwani, Rita Dhodapkar, 2022. "Circular Economy in Wastewater: Evaluating Emerging Contaminants-removal Technologies in Wastewater Treatment Plants", Photo- and Electrochemical Water Treatment: For the Removal of Contaminants of Emerging Concern, Halan Prakash, Rita S Dhodapkar, Kevin McGuigan
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Urbanization has gained traction worldwide in the latter half of the 20th century. Since then, the stress on natural resources has increased. With limited resources and soaring demands, the concept of a circular economy (CE) was conceived and promoted through government legislation and business firms in the past decade. Wastewater is a valuable source of water, nutrients, energy, and many value-added products. In urban areas, it is an unregulated practice to use treated wastewater for irrigating agricultural fields. However, Emerging Contaminants (ECs) concentration is not a quality parameter in the enacted legislation in most countries. ECs are new-age pollutants constituting personal-care products, pharmaceuticals, nanomaterials, etc. that remained untreated and possess the threat of long-term persistence in the ecosystem through various application pathways. Thereby, implementation of CE-driven wastewater treatment technologies in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to minimize the negative impact of ECs on the environment and human health is the need of the hour. This chapter explores the opportunities and feasibility of implementing ECs removal technologies (ECRTs) in an existing WWTP to recover EC-free water as a resource. Considering the energy, environment, and economic aspects, a novel 3E evaluation model is developed to evaluate the circular economy feasibility of each ECRT.