Assessment of the quality and toxicity of the discharges of a wastewater treatment plant and alternatives to improve its operation

Abstract

Wastewater discharges into freshwater bodies represent a serious ecological problem worldwide. In underdeveloped and developing countries wastewater treatment plants (WTP) only count with basic treatment, leading to the pollution of important aquatic reservoirs causing critical situations. In the present work, a one year evaluation of toxicity and main physical and chemical parameters of one of the major WTP of the state of Aguascalientes was conducted fortnightly, and to assess treatment alternatives for this WTP we tested: a) three white rot fungi (WRF), b) a photo-electrochemical process, c) ion-exchangers resins and activated carbon. The 3 WRF exhibited high COD removal from influents (72 – 95 %) but only Phanerochaete chrysosporium reached significant toxicity removals (70 and 55 %, for an influent and an effluent, respectively). Treatments with electrochemical advanced oxidation processes resulted with the highest toxicity and COD removals (96 % for both parameters) in comparison to biological and physicochemical treatments. Adsorption with activated carbon, zeolite and chelex ion-exchange resins removed 60 – 90 % of COD and 60 – 99 % toxicity. These results could be used to improve operation of the Industrial Park WTP and to plan future modifications to the plant.

Keywords:

• Wastewater treatment
• white rot fungi
• ion-exchange resins
• activated carbon
• electrochemical advanced oxidation processes
• toxicity.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of Mexican Council of Science and Technology and to Research and Technology Development on Electrochemistry Center. We thank Susana Saucedo-Ríos for help in toxicity testing and fungi culture maintenance.