Improving the use of granular activated carbon to control algal byproducts during drinking water treatment

改进颗粒活性炭的使用以控制饮用水处理过程中的藻类副产物

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-04871
• 负责人: Hofmann, Ron
• 金额: $ 2.62万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=737917
• 关键词: Improving; use; granular; activated; carbon

Drinking water treatment plants may use granular activated carbon (GAC) to adsorb and remove contaminants, but the GAC has a finite service life before it is exhausted and needs to be replaced. A recent trend in the industry is to use GAC in a biological mode: allowing bacteria to grow on its surface and remove contaminants through biodegradation. This allows the GAC to remain in service, avoiding costly replacement. Such "biofiltration", however, remains poorly understood and unpredictable. The proposed research aims to take advantage of recent discoveries by the proponent to make substantial gains in our understanding of biofiltration. In particular, drinking water treatment plants have been identified in Ontario that show considerable evidence of both the presence of effective biofiltration, as well as its absence, under conditions that appear on a superficial level to be relatively similar. By studying the GAC from these plants, the factors that lead to effective biofiltration can be identified. This work will be aided by a new application of a technique to study biodegradation, called compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA), which has traditionally been used to study the fate of contaminants at large concentrations. By developing a method to apply CSIA for contaminants at low levels (µg/L or ng/L), new research areas could be opened up in terms of evaluating the fate of trace contaminants in the environment. The overall goal of this research is to identify robust, effective, and reliable strategies to enhance the biodegradation of target contaminants through GAC. This will reduce the cost of GAC treatment, which in turn would allow GAC to be used by a greater number of utilities. GAC offers good broad-spectrum protection against a range of contaminants, so the ability to apply it more widely would bring corresponding public health benefits. Furthermore, GAC is a green treatment, requiring no chemicals and little energy, so its use as an alternative to other forms of treatment to destroy microcontaminants would be a move towards more sustainable drinking water treatment.

饮用水处理厂可能会使用颗粒状活性炭（GAC）吸附并去除污染物，但是GAC在耗尽并需要更换之前具有有限的使用寿命。该行业的最新趋势是在生物学模式下使用GAC：允许细菌在其表面生长并通过生物降解去除污染物。这使GAC能够继续使用，避免了昂贵的更换。然而，这种“生物过滤”仍然对理解和不可预测。拟议的研究旨在利用支持者的最新发现，以在我们对生物过滤的理解中取得丰厚的收益。特别是，在安大略省已经确定了饮用水处理厂，这些植物表明存在有效的生物过滤及其不存在的证据，在表面上出现的条件下，相对相似。通过研究这些植物的GAC，可以鉴定出导致有效生物过滤的因素。这项工作将通过一种新技术来研究生物降解，称为复合特异性同位素分析（CSIA），该技术传统上被用来研究污染物浓度较大的污染物的命运。通过开发一种在低水平（µg/l或ng/l）下应用CSIA的方法，可以根据评估环境中痕量污染物的命运的命运来开放新的研究领域。这项研究的总体目标是确定可靠，有效和可靠的策略，以通过GAC来增强目标污染物的生物降解。这将降低GAC治疗的成本，这又可以使GAC被更多的公用事业使用。 GAC可针对各种污染物提供良好的广谱保护，因此更广泛地应用它的能力将带来相应的公共健康益处。此外，GAC是一种绿色处理，不需要化学物质和少量能量，因此它用作其他形式的治疗方法来破坏微抑制剂将是朝着更可持续的饮用水处理迈进。