Sustainable Process for Treatment of Waste-Water Reverse Osmosis Concentrate to Achieve Near Zero Liquid Discharge

Project Member(s): Vigneswaran, S., Kandasamy, J., Nguyen, T.

Funding or Partner Organisation: CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE)

Start year: 2015

Summary: Groundwater in many parts of Australia has a high concentration of nitrate. Many treatment methods such as adsorption, reverse osmosis, denitrification of which adsorption is a sustainable solution. Cost-effective carbon based adsorbents have low adsorption capacities and requires surface modification. In this study we will modify agricultural by-products and meso-porous silica by a combination of processes such as protonation, amination and metal incorporation to produce high adsorption capacity. We will also develop a cost effective membrane adsorption system that operates under gravity and has smart adaptive cleaning. This study is very important to small community water supplies in remote Australia and in developing countries. Novel surface modified adsorbents based on agricultural by-products and silica based mesoporus materials together with cost-effective gravity fed membrane systems are investigated in this project with the goal of developing a robust and cost effective treatment system process for the supply of potable water to remote communities

Keywords: water treatment, nitrate removal, adsorption

FOR Codes: Water Treatment Processes, Membrane and Separation Technologies, Environmental Technologies, Land and Water Management of environments not elsewhere classified, Urban and Industrial Water Management, Separation¿¿technologies, Environmentally sustainable engineering , Other environmental management not elsewhere classified, Terrestrial systems and management not elsewhere classified