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.

饮用水处理厂可以使用颗粒活性炭（GAC）来吸附和去除污染物，但GAC在耗尽之前的使用寿命是有限的，需要更换，行业最近的趋势是以生物模式使用GAC。 ：允许细菌在其表面生长并通过生物降解去除污染物，这使得 GAC 能够继续使用，从而避免昂贵的更换，但是，这项研究的目的仍然是知之甚少。利用支持者最近的发现，使我们对生物过滤的理解取得实质性进展。特别是，在安大略省发现了饮用水处理厂，这些工厂显示出大量证据表明，在以下条件下存在有效的生物过滤，以及不存在有效的生物过滤。通过研究这些植物的 GAC，可以确定导致有效生物过滤的因素，这项工作将得到生物降解研究技术（称为化合物特异性）的新应用的帮助。同位素分析 (CSIA) 传统上用于研究高浓度污染物的命运，通过开发一种将 CSIA 应用于低浓度（μg/L 或 ng/L）污染物的方法，可以开辟新的研究领域。在评估环境中微量污染物的命运方面，本研究的总体目标是确定稳健、有效和可靠的策略，以通过 GAC 增强目标污染物的生物降解性。 GAC 处理反过来将使 GAC 被更多的公用事业公司使用，从而提供针对一系列污染物的良好广谱保护，因此更广泛地应用它的能力将带来相应的公共健康益处。是一种绿色处理方法，不需要化学品和很少的能源，因此将其用作其他形式的处理方法来消灭微污染物的替代方案将是朝着更可持续的饮用水处理迈出的一步。