Start date: 1 septiembre, 2023
End date: 1 agosto, 2026
Code: PID2022-140875OB-C31/PID2022-140875OB-C32
Participants
- Functional Unit “Water Treatments”
- Functional Unit “Environmental Analysis”
Contacts
Subproject 1:
- A. Agüera (aaguera@ual.es)
- J.A. Sánchez Pérez (jsanchez@ual.es)
Subproject 2:
- I. Polo (inmaculada.polo@psa.es)
- I. Oller (isabel.oller@psa.es)
Funds:
Ministry of Science and Innovation. Knowledge Generation Projects 2022.
Current Situation:
In progress
Summary
The ANDROMEDA project aims at the elimination of persistent and mobile organic pollutants (PMOCs) in reclaimed water, with special emphasis on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS), with hazardous effects on the environment and human health. The discharge of PFAS into the aquatic environment is a threat to the quality of our water resources. The European Commission therefore proposes their inclusion in updated lists of pollutants to be more strictly controlled in surface water and groundwater. Reclamation treatments must also address the removal of microbial pathogens, such as E. coli, coliphages and spore-forming sulphate-reducing bacteria, to ensure compliance with EU Regulation 2020/741 on minimum quality requirements for reclaimed water intended for crop irrigation, which will become mandatory in June 2023. To ensure the achievement of these objectives, the ANDROMEDA project proposes:
1) Development of analytical methodologies for target, suspect and non-target substances to identify PFASs and other relevant PMOCs in WWTP effluents; to evaluate the efficiency of their removal by the proposed treatments; to identify the main transformation products; and to estimate the environmental ecotoxicity and the risk to human health of the identified compounds.
2) Evaluation of new advanced oxidation/reduction processes for the simultaneous disinfection of WWTP effluents and their decontamination, at pilot scale through the design, construction and operation of solar/LED reactors. The project will include comparative assessment with ozonation (conventional and widely used tertiary treatment) and catalytic and solar photocatalytic ozonation (as a new ozone-based treatment).
3) Proposal of the most efficient strategy for the recovery and reuse of WWTP effluents using the novel treatments developed and tested at pilot scale in the project.