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      Performance and onsite regeneration of natural zeolite for ammonium removal in a field-scale non-sewered sanitation system

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          Abstract

          Natural zeolite clinoptilolite was used as the primary ammonium removal method from the permeate of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) treating high-strength blackwater generated from a community toilet facility. This zeolite-based nutrient capture system (NCS) was a sub-component of a non-sewered sanitation system (NSSS) called the NEWgenerator and was field tested for 1.5 years at an informal settlement in South Africa. The NCS was operated for three consecutive loading cycles, each lasting 291, 110, and 52 days, respectively. Both blackwater (from toilets) and blackwater with yellow water (from toilets and urinals) were treated during the field trial. Over the three cycles, the NCS was able to remove 80 ± 28%, 64 ± 23%, and 94 ± 11%, respectively, of the influent ammonium. The addition of yellow water caused the rapid exhaustion of zeolite and the observed decrease of ammonium removal during Cycle 2. After Cycles 1 and 2, onsite regeneration was performed to recover the sorption capacity of the spent zeolite. The regenerant was comprised of NaCl under alkaline conditions and was operated as a recycle-batch to reduce the generation of regenerant waste. Modifications to the second regeneration process, including an increase in regenerant contact time from 15 to 30 h, improved the zeolite regeneration efficiency from 76 ± 0.7% to 96 ± 1.0%. The mass of recoverable ammonium in the regenerant was 2.63 kg NH 4-N and 3.15 kg NH 4-N after Regeneration 1 and 2, respectively. However, the mass of ammonium in the regenerant accounted for only 52.8% and 54.4% of the estimated NH 4-N originally sorbed onto the zeolite beds after Cycles 1 and 2, respectively. The use of zeolite clinoptilolite is a feasible method for ammonium removal by NSSS that observe variable nitrogen loading rates, but further research is still needed to recover the nitrogen from the regenerant waste.

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          Highlights

          • 1.5 yr field trial of a zeolite-based nutrient capture system for ammonium removal.

          • Three ammonium loading cycles of 291, 110, and 52 days were evaluated.

          • Ammonium removal achieved for each cycle was 80 ± 28%, 64 ± 23%, and 94 ± 11%.

          • Two onsite regenerations were conducted between cycles.

          • Regeneration efficiencies for each regeneration were 76 ± 0.7% and 96 ± 1.0%.

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          Most cited references34

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          Full-scale partial nitritation/anammox experiences--an application survey.

          Partial nitritation/anammox (PN/A) has been one of the most innovative developments in biological wastewater treatment in recent years. With its discovery in the 1990s a completely new way of ammonium removal from wastewater became available. Over the past decade many technologies have been developed and studied for their applicability to the PN/A concept and several have made it into full-scale. With the perspective of reaching 100 full-scale installations in operation worldwide by 2014 this work presents a summary of PN/A technologies that have been successfully developed, implemented and optimized for high-strength ammonium wastewaters with low C:N ratios and elevated temperatures. The data revealed that more than 50% of all PN/A installations are sequencing batch reactors, 88% of all plants being operated as single-stage systems, and 75% for sidestream treatment of municipal wastewater. Additionally an in-depth survey of 14 full-scale installations was conducted to evaluate practical experiences and report on operational control and troubleshooting. Incoming solids, aeration control and nitrate built up were revealed as the main operational difficulties. The information provided gives a unique/new perspective throughout all the major technologies and discusses the remaining obstacles. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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            A Review of Phosphorus Removal Technologies and Their Applicability to Small-Scale Domestic Wastewater Treatment Systems

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              Sanitation: a global estimate of sewerage connections without treatment and the resulting impact on MDG progress.

              Progress toward the sanitation component of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Target 7c was reassessed to account for the need to protect communities and the wider population from exposure to human excreta. We classified connections to sewerage as "improved sanitation" only if the sewage was treated before discharge to the environment. Sewerage connection data was available for 167 countries in 2010; of these, 77 had published data on sewage treatment prevalence. We developed an empirical model to estimate sewage treatment prevalence for 47 additional countries. We estimate that in 2010, 40% of the global population (2.8 billion people) used improved sanitation, as opposed to the estimate of 62% (4.3 billion people) from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), and that 4.1 billion people lacked access to an improved sanitation facility. Redefining sewerage-without-treatment as "unimproved sanitation" in MDG monitoring would raise the 1990 baseline population using unimproved sanitation from 53% to 64% and the corresponding 2015 target from 27% to 32%. At the current rate of progress, we estimate a shortfall of 28 percentage points (1.9 billion people) in 2010 and a projected 27 percentage point shortfall in 2015.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Sci Total Environ
                Sci Total Environ
                The Science of the Total Environment
                Elsevier
                0048-9697
                1879-1026
                01 July 2021
                01 July 2021
                : 776
                : 145938
                Affiliations
                [a ]University of South Florida, Civil & Environmental Engineering, 4202 E. Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620, USA
                [b ]Pollution Research Group, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author. cjcastro@ 123456usf.edu
                Article
                S0048-9697(21)01005-6 145938
                10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145938
                8111385
                33652315
                8d5fc6c7-f379-4520-9cce-8c71c9dd172a
                © 2021 The Authors

                This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 24 December 2020
                : 9 February 2021
                : 10 February 2021
                Categories
                Article

                General environmental science
                non-sewered sanitation,zeolite,ammonium,wastewater,resource recovery,sorption

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