Super-fine powdered activated carbon
Super-fine powdered activated carbon combined with ultrafiltration for an efficient removal of micropollutants from wastewater
A new
treatment process (SPAC-UF) for the removal of micropollutants (MP) from
wastewater effluent that significantly reduces the use of carbon has been
successfully tested at the WWTP in Châteauneuf-Sion. The innovation consists in
the use of super-fine powdered activated carbon (SPAC) coupled with
ultrafiltration (UF). Within the scope of the two-year pilot project, we
validated and optimized the continuous use of the process at pilot scale,
investigated the influence of certain variables on the MP removal and made an
initial estimate of the operating and investment costs of the process.
The piloting study confirms that the kinetics of PM adsorption on SCAP are extremely fast (<2min) and show that the MP removal performance of SCAP is 25% higher than CAP, for contact times <30min.
Compared to the use of PAC, super-fine powdered activated carbon technology coupled with ultrafiltration has the following advantages:
- 20% reduction of the carbon dose required to achieve 80% removal of MP,
- an extremely compact implementation (-65% of land use),
- a substantial improvement of the effluent quality.
The results are presented in the Aqua & Gas journal, n°1, 2021: link
