Treatment of Micropollutants in Wastewater: Balancing Effectiveness, Costs and Implications

50 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2022

See all articles by Alberto Pistocchi

Alberto Pistocchi

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Henrik.R Andersen

Technical University of Denmark

Giorgio Bertanza

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Aline Brander

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Jean-Marc Choubert

affiliation not provided to SSRN; INRAE, UR 1468 REVERSAAL

Michael Cimbritz

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Jörg E. Drewes

Technische Universität München (TUM)

Christian Koehler

SIDERO

Joerg Krampe

Vienna University of Technology

Marie Launay

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Per Henrik Nielsen

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Stanislav Stanev

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Nathan Obermaier

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Dines Thornberg

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Abstract

In this contribution, we analyse scenarios of advanced wastewater treatment for the removal of micropollutants. We refer to current mainstream, broad spectrum processes including ozonation and sorption onto activated carbon.  We review the critical aspects of the main advanced treatment options, their advantages and disadvantages. We propose a quantification of the costs of implementing advanced treatment, as well as upgrading plants from secondary to tertiary treatment when needed, and we illustrate what drives the costs of advanced treatment for a set of standard configurations. We propose a cost function to represent the total costs (investment, operation and maintenance) of advanced treatment. We quantify the implications of advanced treatment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Based on indicators of total toxic discharge, toxicity at the discharge points and toxicity across the stream network, we compare costs and effectiveness of different scenarios of advanced treatment. In principle the total toxic load and toxicity at the points of discharge could be reduced by about 75% if advanced treatment processes were implemented virtually at all wastewater treatment plants, but this would entail costs of about 4 billion euro/year for the European Union as a whole. We identify a “compromise” scenario where advanced treatment is required at plants of 100 thousand population equivalents (PE) or larger, or at plants between 10 and 100 thousand PE if the dilution ratio at the discharge point is 10 or less. Under this scenario, the extent of the stream network exposed to high toxicity would not increase, and the other indicators would not deteriorate significantly, while the costs would remain at about 1.5 billion Euro/year.

Keywords: Micropollutants, activated carbon, ozonation, membrane filtration, urban wastewater, advanced treatment, cost-effectiveness, greenhouse gas emissions.

Suggested Citation

Pistocchi, Alberto and Andersen, Henrik.R and Bertanza, Giorgio and Brander, Aline and Choubert, Jean-Marc and Choubert, Jean-Marc and Cimbritz, Michael and Drewes, Jörg E. and Koehler, Christian and Krampe, Joerg and Launay, Marie and Nielsen, Per Henrik and Stanev, Stanislav and Obermaier, Nathan and Thornberg, Dines, Treatment of Micropollutants in Wastewater: Balancing Effectiveness, Costs and Implications. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4052482 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4052482

Alberto Pistocchi (Contact Author)

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Henrik.R Andersen

Technical University of Denmark ( email )

Denmark
28664916 (Phone)
2800 (Fax)

Giorgio Bertanza

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Aline Brander

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Jean-Marc Choubert

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

INRAE, UR 1468 REVERSAAL ( email )

5 rue de la doua
CS 20244
Villeurbanne Cedex, 69625
France
0472208787 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://reversaal.inrae.fr/

Michael Cimbritz

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Jörg E. Drewes

Technische Universität München (TUM) ( email )

Christian Koehler

SIDERO ( email )

11C, rue Irbicht
Beringen, Mersch 7590
Luxembourg

Joerg Krampe

Vienna University of Technology ( email )

Marie Launay

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Per Henrik Nielsen

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Stanislav Stanev

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Nathan Obermaier

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Dines Thornberg

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
138
Abstract Views
433
Rank
423,771
PlumX Metrics