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Development of a Phytologically-Based Biosorptive Water Treatment Process

EPA Grant Number: R828598C761
Title: Development of a Phytologically-Based Biosorptive Water Treatment Process
Investigators: Zappi, Mark E. , Columbus, Eugene , Swalm, Dave C , Thomasson, Alex
Institution: Mississippi State University
EPA Project Officer: Krishnan, Bala S.
Project Period: January 1, 2001 through July 1, 2004
Project Amount: $88,174
RFA: Gulf Coast Hazardous Substance Research Center (Lamar University) (1996)
Research Category: Targeted Research , Hazardous Waste/Remediation

Description:

Conventional biotreatment is the most popular industrial wastewater treatment process utilized within the Southeast United States. The recent efforts in pollution prevention within industry has resulted in the reduction of wastewater strength, which in turn, has decreased the ability of these waters to sustain an effective biomass within bioreactor units. Also, current groundwater remediation systems are challenging current state-of-the-art technologies in terms of both process economics and technical performance. Clearly, new processes that can reduce cost, maintain or even improve treatment, and reduce technical complexity will be a great asset to the environmental engineering community.

Objective:

The objective of the project is to develop an innovative process for treatment of contaminated waters. The process involves adsorption of contaminants onto plant materials that are loaded within a packed column.

Approach:

After the sorptive capacity of the kenaf is expended, then the spent kenaf fibers are disposed of using composting. The composting step not only reduces well over 75% of the fiber volume, but this step also biologically degrades the phenol adsorbed onto the fibers. This process is viewed as a direct competitor to activated carbon which is one of the most common treatment processes used for wastewater and groundwater remediation. Activated carbon requires high temperature processing of the raw products followed by a heated steam activated step both of which are costly. Also, handling of activated carbon under the best of conditions typically produces 10% unusable fines during each charging step. Kenaf is a rapidly developing agricultural product that has current production capacity to support commercialization of the proposed technology.

Stability testing of the kenaf fibers found this material to be stable under high handling stresses (i.e. no fine generation), plus recent saturated column testing under continuous dynamic flow conditions found kenaf to be stable with minimal change in permeability noted. The adsorptive capacity of kenaf for TNT and dichlorophenol was found to be less than activated carbon; however, when considering that the kenaf is an order of magnitude cheaper than activated carbon, then the proposed process appears to be cost competitive to activated carbon. Surface modification techniques via ozonation indicated as much as a ten-fold increase in the sorptive capacity of kenaf for the test adsorbates.

Publications and Presentations:

Publications have been submitted on this project: View all 6 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

Water, TREATMENT/CONTROL, Scientific Discipline, Waste, Wastewater, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Microbiology, Environmental Chemistry, Treatment Technologies, Bioremediation, industrial wastewater, biodegradation, phytoremediation, adsorption, bioadsorption

Progress and Final Reports:
Final Report

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The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.

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