Sludge concentration, shear rate and nanoparticle size determine silver nanoparticle removal during wastewater treatment
Journal article, 2017

Wastewater treatment (WWT) is generally efficient in removing nanoparticles (NPs) from sewage effluent, but the variety in removal rates has not yet been explained. WWT parameters such as the activated sludge (AS) concentration, shear rate and ionic strength were varied in kinetic batch attachment and sedimentation studies using silver NPs having nominal 20 or 80 nm sizes and citrate or PEG coatings. The fitted attachment and detachment rate constants and the resulting distribution ratios at steady state varied with WWT process parameters, but most notably with the NP size, which was also found to influence the settling rates most. The NP coating molecules had a limited or no effect. A meta-analysis of literature distribution ratios (attached/detached concentration) of NPs composed of Ag and other materials showed the NP (aggregate) size as the only significant parameter. However, while the distribution ratio of silver NPs to AS increased linearly with AS concentration, the final effect of NP effluent concentrations is partly offset by decreased sedimentation rates. The results thus confirm that a WWT process is efficient in removing NPs from wastewater, but relatively small (<20 nm) non-aggregated NPs are somewhat more likely to exit a WWT process via the effluent into aquatic compartments compared to relatively larger NPs, which nearly entirely leave the WWT plants with the AS towards soils, incineration plants or landfills.

treatment-plant

heteroaggregation

zinc-oxide nanoparticles

sewage-sludge

model

fate

activated-sludge

particle-size

coagulation

sedimentation

Author

Geert Cornelis

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

A. M. Forsberg-Grivogiannis

University of Gothenburg

N. P. Skold

University of Gothenburg

Sebastien Rauch

Chalmers, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Water Environment Technology

J. Perez-Holmberg

University of Gothenburg

Environmental Science: Nano

2051-8153 (ISSN) 2051-8161 (eISSN)

Vol. 4 11 2225-2234

Subject Categories

Civil Engineering

DOI

10.1039/c7en00734e

More information

Latest update

4/11/2018