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1. Treatment of Poultry Slaughterhouse Wastewater with Membrane Technologies: A Review

   https://doi.org/10.3390/w13141905  

   Fatima, Faryal ; Du, Hongbo ; Kommalapati, Raghava R. ( July 2021 , Water)

   null (Ed.)

   Poultry slaughterhouses produce a large amount of wastewater, which is usually treated by conventional methods. The traditional techniques face some challenges, especially the incapability of recovering valuable nutrients and reusing the treated water. Therefore, membrane technology has been widely adopted by researchers due to its enormous advantages over conventional methods. Pressure-driven membranes, such as microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO), have been studied to purify poultry slaughterhouse wastewater (PSWW) as a standalone process or an integrated process with other procedures. Membrane technology showed excellent performance by providing high efficiency for pollutant removal and the recovery of water and valuable products. It may remove approximately all the pollutants from PSWW and purify the water to the required level for discharge to the environment and even reuse for industrial poultry processing purposes while being economically efficient. This article comprehensively reviews the treatment and reuse of PSWW with MF, UF, NF, and RO. Most valuable nutrients can be recovered by UF, and high-quality water for reuse in poultry processing can be produced by RO from PSWW. The incredible performance of membrane technology indicates that membrane technology is an alternative approach for treating PSWW. 

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2. UTEP–EPW university–utility partnership: Concentrate enhanced–recovery reverse osmosis process for high water recovery from silica‐saturated desalination concentrates

   https://doi.org/10.1002/wer.1176  

   Tarquin, Anthony ; Walker, William Shane ; Delgado, Guillermo ; Bustamante, Angel ( July 2019 , Water Environment Research)

   Since the 1970s, The University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Water have had a synergistic university–utility partnership, and in 2002, we began a sequence of investigations of enhanced recovery of water from silica‐saturated reverse osmosis concentrate: (a) two‐pass nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) treatment, (b) lime softening for silica removal, (c) vibratory shear enhanced processing (VSEP), (d) continuous‐flow seawater RO treatment of brackish RO concentrate, and finally (e) high‐recovery concentrate enhanced‐recovery reverse osmosis (CERRO) process. Studies funded by El Paso Water, Texas Water Development Board, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and WateReuse Research Foundation were conducted at the Kay Bailey Hutchison (KBH) Plant in El Paso and the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, NM, and showed that as much as 88% of the water could be recovered from silica‐saturated KBH concentrate using the CERRO process. Full‐scale implementation of the CERRO process at well sites in El Paso has resulted in 70%–75% recovery of RO concentrate with a specific energy consumption of 1.23 kWh/m³(4.6 kWh/kgal) and total estimated cost of approximately $0.59/m³($2.25/kgal). Cost‐effective high‐recovery desalination technologies such as CERRO are essential for drought‐proof water supply in arid cities such as El Paso.

   This two‐decade UTEP‐EPW research partnership was sustained by a long‐term commitment to research and consistent financial support from EPW.

   Universities can collaborate to leverage utility funding toward larger external grant funding to advance research and development in a win–win partnership.

   The high‐recovery CERRO process was developed through multiple phases of concentrate management research, which would not have been possible without long‐term research commitment and risk tolerance from EPW.

   CERRO systems are being implemented at full scale in El Paso to recover water from silica‐saturated RO concentrate at an estimated specific energy consumption of 1.23 kWh/m³(4.6 kWh/kgal) and total amortized cost of $0.59/m³($2.25/kgal).

    

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3. Application of Zwitterions in Forward Osmosis: A Short Review

   https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13040583  

   Chiao, Yu-Hsuan ; Sengupta, Arijit ; Ang, Micah Belle ; Chen, Shu-Ting ; Haan, Teow Yeit ; Almodovar, Jorge ; Hung, Wei-Song ; Wickramasinghe, S. Ranil ( February 2021 , Polymers)

   Forward osmosis (FO) is an important desalination method to produce potable water. It was also used to treat different wastewater streams, including industrial as well as municipal wastewater. Though FO is environmentally benign, energy intensive, and highly efficient; it still suffers from four types of fouling namely: organic fouling, inorganic scaling, biofouling and colloidal fouling or a combination of these types of fouling. Membrane fouling may require simple shear force and physical cleaning for sufficient recovery of membrane performance. Severe fouling may need chemical cleaning, especially when a slimy biofilm or severe microbial colony is formed. Modification of FO membrane through introducing zwitterionic moieties on the membrane surface has been proven to enhance antifouling property. In addition, it could also significantly improve the separation efficiency and longevity of the membrane. Zwitterion moieties can also incorporate in draw solution as electrolytes in FO process. It could be in a form of a monomer or a polymer. Hence, this review comprehensively discussed several methods of inclusion of zwitterionic moieties in FO membrane. These methods include atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP); second interfacial polymerization (SIP); coating and in situ formation. Furthermore, an attempt was made to understand the mechanism of improvement in FO performance by zwitterionic moieties. Finally, the future prospective of the application of zwitterions in FO has been discussed. 

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4. A novel photobiological process for reverse osmosis concentrate treatment using brackish water diatoms

   https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2017.142  

   Ikehata, Keisuke ; Zhao, Yuanyuan ; Ma, Jingshu ; Komor, Andrew T. ; Maleky, Nima ; Anderson, Michael A. ( July 2017 , Water Science and Technology: Water Supply)

   A unique aqueous silica removal process using naturally occurring diatoms for water reuse and desalination is described. Several strains of brackish water diatoms have been isolated and tested. Among them Pseudostaurosira and Nitzschia species showed promise. Reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate samples from two full-scale advanced water purification facilities and one brackish groundwater RO plant in Southern California have been successfully treated by this process. This new photobiological process could remove aqueous silica, as well as phosphate, ammonia, nitrate, calcium, iron and manganese very effectively. Under non-optimized conditions, 95% of 78 mg·L-1 reactive silica in an RO concentrate sample could be removed within 72 hours. In most cases, addition of nutrients was not necessary because the RO concentrate typically contains sufficient concentrations of macronutrients derived from the source water (i.e., treated wastewater and brackish groundwater). Preliminary characterization of organics indicated that there was no major generation of dissolved organics, which could potentially foul membranes in the subsequent RO process. This new algal process has a strong potential for its application in desalination and water reuse in the United States and around the world. 

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5. Fate and Transport of the Biologically Treated Landfill Leachate Induced Dissolved Organic Nitrogen (DON)

   Md Ashik Ahmed*, Md Redowan ( June 2023 , AEESP Research and Education Conference, Northeastern University, June 20-23, 2023)

   This study evaluated the performance of sequencing batch reactors (SBR) in the fate and transport of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) using a blend of wastewater and landfill leachate. Most nitrogen removal methods concentrate on inorganic nitrogen, whereas some biological processes add DON to the effluent. Two reactors were introduced with wastewater and landfill leachate of high and low organic carbon and compared them to a reactor without leachate. DON transformation, characterization, and microbial community dispersion were examined to understand the effects of leachate-induced effluent DON on the biological nitrogen removal process. The ammonium removal efficiencies were found 96, 97, and 98%; COD removal efficiencies were 75, 59, and 63%; and total nitrogen (TN) removal efficiencies were 83, 86, and 88%, for R1, R2, and R3, respectively. The effluent nitrate concentrations were found 1.67 ± 0.89 (R1), 3.05 ± 2.08 (R2), and 1.31 ± 1.30 (R3) mg/L and DON went down from 9.67 ± 2.5 to 6.02 ± 2.8 mg/L (R1), 9.29 ± 3.4 to 7.49 ± 3.6 mg/L (R2), and 3.59 ± 1.6 to 2.08 ± 1.1 mg/L (R3). Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) and excitation-emission matrices (EEMs) with parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis were used to characterize DON. Microbial community analysis was also conducted. Leachate-induced DON discharge's environmental effects were assessed using in-situ aquatic ecosystem algal bioassay. SBR system removed most inorganic nitrogen species and a small amount of leachate-induced DON. The study emphasizes the need for independent investigations to assess their effects on receiving water bodies. 

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