Removal of Pharmaceuticals from Human Waste by Adsorption Process for Nutrient Recovery and Reuse

Almuntashiri, Abdulaziz Yousef

Removal of Pharmaceuticals from Human Waste by Adsorption Process for Nutrient Recovery and Reuse

Almuntashiri, Abdulaziz Yousef

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Publication Type:: Thesis
Issue Date:: 2024

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Almuntashiri, Abdulaziz Yousef
dc.date.accessioned	2024-06-19T01:52:20Z
dc.date.available	2024-06-19T01:52:20Z
dc.date.issued	2024
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/179568
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	Discharging wastewater effluent containing nutrients (nitrogen-N, potassium-K and phosphorous-P) can cause significant environmental problem. Most energy consumed at the conventional wastewater treatment plant using activated sludge process therefore goes towards removing nutrients mainly nitrogen from the wastewater by biological nitrification processes. N, K and P are essential nutrients for the plants and crops however, separation and recovery of nutrients from the wastewater effluent is not easy requiring expensive processes as nutrients are present in highly diluted form. Hence, source separation of urine is a novel strategy not only to reduce the nutrient load coming to the wastewater treatment plants but makes it easier for nutrient recovery and use it as a fertiliser for growing crops. However, the presence of a wide range of pharmaceutical compounds in the urine is one of the major concerns for fertiliser resource recovery from the urine as these micropollutants can persist within the food chain when used as fertiliser. Investigations for GAC adsorption were conducted under both batch and lab-scale column adsorption experiments. Five mostly commonly found pharmaceutical compounds were used in this study and they include naproxen, carbamazepine, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and metronidazole. The fundamental studies using batch tests were performed to study the adsorption kinetics involved in the pharmaceutical removal from nitrified urine, using various GAC doses (ranging from 10–3000 mg/L). At the maximum dosage, all pharmaceuticals exhibited removal rates exceeding 99% after 6 hours. The study also included fixed-bed GAC column tests to gain breakthrough curves and evaluate GAC efficacy in the pharmaceutical adsorption under various conditions. Based on the breakthrough curves, carbamazepine demonstrated the greatest capacity for adsorption onto GAC, with a value of (56.1 mg/g), while metronidazole had the lowest adsorption capacity of (32.2 mg/g), which may limit the effectiveness of column adsorption applications. In comparison to actual removal rates, the artificial neural network model demonstrated a 99% accuracy in predicting the pharmaceuticals removal. On the other hand, a possible alternative strategy is to conduct chemical regeneration of GAC on-site, employing a suitable solution that can effectively desorb organic compounds. Methanol was discovered to be more efficient, with desorption efficiencies ranged from around 40% to 75%, depending on the contaminant. Overall, it is expected that outcomes of this project will provide the credible information for the real-scale application of fixed-bed GAC column adsorption for the removal of pharmaceuticals from the processed urine thereby helping make urine-derived fertiliser safer and more valuable.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (PhD)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/179568/1/thesis.pdf
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
dc.rights	© 2024 Abdulaziz Yousef Almuntashiri
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/cph
dc.title	Removal of Pharmaceuticals from Human Waste by Adsorption Process for Nutrient Recovery and Reuse	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

Discharging wastewater effluent containing nutrients (nitrogen-N, potassium-K and phosphorous-P) can cause significant environmental problem. Most energy consumed at the conventional wastewater treatment plant using activated sludge process therefore goes towards removing nutrients mainly nitrogen from the wastewater by biological nitrification processes. N, K and P are essential nutrients for the plants and crops however, separation and recovery of nutrients from the wastewater effluent is not easy requiring expensive processes as nutrients are present in highly diluted form. Hence, source separation of urine is a novel strategy not only to reduce the nutrient load coming to the wastewater treatment plants but makes it easier for nutrient recovery and use it as a fertiliser for growing crops. However, the presence of a wide range of pharmaceutical compounds in the urine is one of the major concerns for fertiliser resource recovery from the urine as these micropollutants can persist within the food chain when used as fertiliser. Investigations for GAC adsorption were conducted under both batch and lab-scale column adsorption experiments. Five mostly commonly found pharmaceutical compounds were used in this study and they include naproxen, carbamazepine, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and metronidazole. The fundamental studies using batch tests were performed to study the adsorption kinetics involved in the pharmaceutical removal from nitrified urine, using various GAC doses (ranging from 10–3000 mg/L). At the maximum dosage, all pharmaceuticals exhibited removal rates exceeding 99% after 6 hours. The study also included fixed-bed GAC column tests to gain breakthrough curves and evaluate GAC efficacy in the pharmaceutical adsorption under various conditions. Based on the breakthrough curves, carbamazepine demonstrated the greatest capacity for adsorption onto GAC, with a value of (56.1 mg/g), while metronidazole had the lowest adsorption capacity of (32.2 mg/g), which may limit the effectiveness of column adsorption applications. In comparison to actual removal rates, the artificial neural network model demonstrated a 99% accuracy in predicting the pharmaceuticals removal. On the other hand, a possible alternative strategy is to conduct chemical regeneration of GAC on-site, employing a suitable solution that can effectively desorb organic compounds. Methanol was discovered to be more efficient, with desorption efficiencies ranged from around 40% to 75%, depending on the contaminant. Overall, it is expected that outcomes of this project will provide the credible information for the real-scale application of fixed-bed GAC column adsorption for the removal of pharmaceuticals from the processed urine thereby helping make urine-derived fertiliser safer and more valuable.

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