Groundbreaking trial seeks to clean our waters of medical residue
Among nutrients, phosphorous, organic material and other micropollutants, the wastewaters in Uppsala, Sweden, contain microscopic but resilient pharmaceutical residues. What are the most cost-effective ways to clean these residues and prevent them from further harming our environment?
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00:00 Among nutrients, phosphorus, organic material and other micro pollutants, these waste waters
00:06 in Uppsala, Sweden, contain microscopic but resilient pharmaceutical residues.
00:12 An ongoing pilot trial at this water treatment plant is assessing the best innovative techniques
00:18 to remove up to 80% of pharma residues and micro pollutants.
00:23 The engineer coordinating the project explains what they've learned so far.
00:27 We started off with a pre-study looking at different technologies to improve the removal
00:32 of pharmaceuticals and micro pollutants from the waste water.
00:36 Some of them are removed already today in the treatment plant, but some are more difficult
00:42 to degrade and are not removed, so we have decided that we want to install a new treatment
00:46 step.
00:47 And the technologies evaluated in the pre-study was activated carbon, which is an absorptive
00:53 technology where the residuals are attached to the carbon.
00:58 We also looked into ozonation, which is a process where you degrade by ozonation.
01:05 But since ozonation does not degrade PFAS, we decided not to continue with ozonation.
01:11 However, we found a new technology not used in the waste water application, but in the
01:16 drinking water application, and that's the ion exchange, which is also an absorptive
01:21 technology, but which absorbs negatively charged ions.
01:26 So now we look into the combination of activated carbon and ion exchange.
01:31 [Music]