Presentation Tessa van den Brand on wastewater treatment - kick-off DUWC

1. Advantages of sulphate reducing bacteria in wastewater
treatment
Tessa van den Brand, Kees Roest, Guang Hao Chen,
Damir Brdjanovic and Mark van Loosdrecht

2. Water shortage
We do have freshwater shortage! Only
~0.1% of global water reserves is easily
accessible freshwater.
Desalination techniques in order to deliver
enough freshwater costs a lot of energy
Potable water is used for waste transport.
Each person uses ~37L = 30% of total
usage, potable water per day for toilet
flushing.
Replace by seawater!
Watercycle Research Institute 2

3. SANI-process
Lau 2006, WS&T, 53(3), 227-235
Sulphate reduction,
Autotrophic denitrification
Nitrification
Integrated
CH3COOH + SO42-  HS- + 2HCO3- 1g COD : 1.5 g SO42-
NO3- + 0.63HS- + 0.38 H+  0.63SO42- + 0.5N2 + 0.5H2O
NH4+ + 2O2  H2O + 2H+ + NO3-
Watercycle Research Institute 3

4. Advantages of SANI
• Major fresh water savings
• Major reduction in oxygen demand at WWTP
• Electricity for aeration is biggest environmental footprint of WWTP
• Major reduction in sludge production
• Essentially only unbiodegradable sewer particulates
• Applicable in coastal regions
• Most populated
Watercycle Research Institute 4

5. Additional advantage of SRB
• COD removal with a low sludge yield
• Removal or recovery of heavy metals
• Significant reduction of pathogens in wastewater
• Sulphate removal
Watercycle Research Institute 5

6. Current Research
• Inhibitory effect of sulphide
• COD composition and amount
• Robustness analyses
• The effect of seawater (sulphate and salt also separately)
• The presence of SRBs in conventional WWTPs
Watercycle Research Institute 6

7. Saline project team
Watercycle Research Institute 7