A Holistic Approach towards onsite hospital wastewater treatment

Introduction

In recent years, certain evidence indicates that pharmaceuticals, viruses, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and resistance genes (ARB & ARGs) are disseminated in agricultural soils as a result of irrigation with reclaimed wastewater. Moreover, several reports have shown that these chemical and biological contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) are finally transmitted to crops and the aquatic environment, causing significant threats to human health and environmental protection.

Potential Solutions

The potential solutions are:

1. Additional treatment stages in central wastewater treatment facilities, which, however, have to tackle very low concentrations of CECs and very high daily flow rates.
2. On-site treatment in places such as health service providing units (e.g., hospitals), where CECs are released in large volumes.

Project Objective

The main objective of the project is to determine if and how (optimum operating mode) the innovative combined eco-technologies of the HIPPOCRATEs’ system, developed and tested successfully in pilot scale (1.0 m³/day) for the removal of selected CECs through the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater effluent, are achieving similar high efficiency (removal vs cost) at large demonstration scale (40 m³/day or 85% of the daily produced wastewater). This will be conducted before entering the main sewage system, in an all-year continuous operation, with real hospital effluent and in different geographical areas of Europe (south vs north).

Combined Technologies

The four technologies combined are:

a) Anaerobic Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (AnMBBR)
b) Aerobic Membrane Biological Reactor (MBR)
c) Advanced Oxidation Process unit using UV radiation and addition of H₂O₂
d) Chlorine disinfection unit

These technologies allow for the overall reduction of CECs.

Project Evaluation

Part of the project includes the evaluation of the overall efficiency of the on-site treatment, as well as the estimation of the real risk of releasing these substances into the environment, especially when wastewater is reused.