Empty bed contact time: The key for micropollutant removal in activated carbon filters.

The removal of micropollutants from wastewater is an emerging issue that currently concerns the wastewater sector the most. Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) has gained recognition as a suitable technology for dealing with this problem. This study assesses the performance of six GAC-filters for the removal of micropollutants installed as final treatment step at a municipal wastewater treatment plant. The influence of the GAC-type and the Empty Bed Contact Time (EBCT) on the filter performance was evaluated. The breakthrough behaviour of 13 selected micropollutants as well as the removal of the Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) and UV absorption at 254 nm were investigated. Besides, the adsorbed DOC (qDOC) was introduced as assessment parameter (adsorbed and biodegraded DOC), instead of the commonly used treated bed volume. Finally, Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) with online DOC and UV254nm detection was applied for a better understanding of the influent and effluent characteristics. The results showed that the pore size distribution is a crucial feature of the activated carbon. A balanced proportion of macro-, meso­ and micropores may play a role in the better removal of micropollutants in presence of DOC. Regardless of the GAC-type, a minimum EBCT between 20 - 30 min was necessary. We proved that a short EBCT would not fully use the sorption capacity, whereas a long EBCT would increase the carbon demand without improving of the removal. Lastly, according to the SEC results, after a short operation time no difference between the influent and effluent chromatographable fractions (DOC and UV254nm) was observed.

X-ray spectromicroscopy in soil and environmental sciences.

X-ray microscopy is capable of imaging particles in the nanometer size range directly with sub-micrometer spatial resolution and can be combined with high spectral resolution for spectromicroscopy studies. Two types of microscopes are common in X-ray microscopy: the transmission X-ray microscope and the scanning transmission X-ray microscope; their set-ups are explained in this paper. While the former takes high-resolution images from an object with exposure times of seconds or faster, the latter is very well suited as an analytical instrument for spectromicroscopy. The morphology of clusters or particles from soil and sediment samples has been visualized using a transmission X-ray microscope. Images are shown from a cryo-tomography experiment based on X-ray microscopy images to obtain information about the three-dimensional structure of clusters of humic substances. The analysis of a stack of images taken with a scanning transmission X-ray microscope to combine morphology and chemistry within a soil sample is shown. X-ray fluorescence is a method ideally applicable to the study of elemental distributions and binding states of elements even on a trace level using X-ray energies above 1 keV.

Fractionation of natural organic matter in drinking water and characterization by 13C cross-polarization magic-angle spinning NMR spectroscopy and size exclusion chromatography.

Natural organic matter from drinking water sources was fractionated, and the fractions were characterized by NMR and SEC with the aim of relating NOM structure to treatability. Organic matter was isolated from two Australian surface waters (Horsham, Moorabool) by reverse osmosis and from a groundwater (Wanneroo) by anion exchange. The isolates were fractionated according to polarity and charge by resin adsorption. 13C NMR spectra of the freeze-dried fractions showed the most hydrophobic fraction to be high in aliphatic and aromatic carbon while slightly hydrophobic organics have more carbonyl and alkoxyl carbon. The Horsham and Wanneroo hydrophilic fractions show strong alkoxyl signals attributed to carbohydrate. Moorabool hydrophilics contain aromatic (phenolic) carbon; the apparent absence of carbohydrate appears to be an artifact. Size-exclusion chromatograms were recorded on the original and fractionated organics with both UV and dissolved organic carbon detection. The Horsham and Moorabool organics have similar molecular size distributions while Wanneroo is dominated by strongly absorbing species having large hydrodynamic radii. The hydrophobic and charged hydrophilic fractions also have high apparent MW, while the neutral fraction is higher in low-MW compounds of relatively low specific absorbance, suggestive of carbohydrates.

Organically bound sulfur in refractory organic substances.

The sulfur compounds of refractory organic substances (ROS) of different origin have been characterized. Total organic sulfur was determined by elemental analysis. Sulfur-containing amino acids methionine and cystine were analyzed chromatographically after hydrolysis with HCl or by proteolytic digestion using enzymes. The results obtained from elemental analysis show that the total amount of sulfur is strongly dependent on the origin of the samples, because of different environmental factors during the formation of ROS. For naturally occurring samples isolated from soil seepage water, bog lake water and ground water the carbon-to-sulfur atomic ratios (C/S) decrease with the stage of humification, because of preferential loss of carbon. In humic acids (HA) isolated from secondary effluent the high value of the nitrogen-to-sulfur ratio (N/S) was indicative of a large amount of protein-derived nitrogen and sulfur compounds. In the solutions from acid hydrolysis the total amount of amino acid carbon related to the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was generally less than 5%. Percentages of cystine related to all the amino acids detected were in the range 4 to 16%; methionine was below the detection limit for most samples. The results show that cystine is very important among the amino acids released. Enzymatic release generally resulted in smaller amounts of amino acids, indicating that these molecules are not only present in bioavailable protein-like structures. The data were compared with those from other approaches reported in the literature for the speciation of sulfur forms in ROS, including potentiometric titration, differential reduction methods, and spectroscopic investigations.

Determination of dichloroacetic acid and trichloroacetic acid by liquid-liquid extraction and ion chromatography.

An extraction technique using MTBE (methyl tert. butyl ether) and reagent water in combination with ion chromatography and conductivity determination was developed to quantify dichloroacetic acid (DCAA) and trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) concentrations in raw water after chlorination. The detection limit of the method was 0.45 and 1.50 microg/L for DCAA and TCAA, respectively. Mean values of recovery ranged from 90 to 96% for DCAA and 95 to 108% for TCAA. The evaluation of recovery and precision of the method indicates that the performance characteristics are comparable with gas chromatographic (GC) methods reported in literature. In addition, the procedure is simple, fast, and does not need any derivatization step. Application of the analytical method to the determination of DCAA and TCAA in real samples is shown.