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Nature Water (2024 )Cite this article Sludge Dewatering Cationic Polymer
With growing concerns over plastic accumulation in the environment, it is imperative to quantify nanoplastic and microplastic release to water bodies via water treatment plant effluent streams. Current methodological limitations present a major challenge for continuous monitoring of nanosized pollutants in effluent streams. In this work, a novel correlation was established between removal of nanoplastics and total suspended solids (TSS) during aggregation-based wastewater treatment. The established correlation successfully predicted nanoplastic removal for a wide range of relevant nanoplastic properties, including polymer type, size, surface functionalization and ageing history, under 41 different physico-chemical and activated sludge treatment conditions (R2 = 0.92; n = 117). The results of our correlation reveal a predicted nanoplastic removal between 39% and 69% for typical water treatment effluent streams governed by current TSS regulations in North America. The study also reveals the potential of using TSS as a simple metric to estimate microfibre, microsphere and microfragment removal.
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The data supporting the findings in this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. Data collected and used to create the figures in this study are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22082369.
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We acknowledge the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRC-2016-00205, N.T.), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) (RGPIN/04519-2019, N.T.), the Killam Research Fellowship (7025-19-0049, N.T.) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (36368, 40070, N.T.). S.A.F. was supported by a Graduate Excellence Fellowship at McGill University, M.L. was supported by a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, R.S.K. was supported by NSERC and Fonds de Recherche du Québec Nature et technologies (FRQNT) Postdoctoral Fellowships and Z.L. was supported by NSERC Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program. We thank L. Hernandez (McGill University) for assistance with electron microscopy imaging and Q. Zheng for assistance with synthetic wastewater jar test experiments.
The following authors contributed equally: Sinan Abi Farraj, Matthew Lapointe.
Department of Chemical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Sinan Abi Farraj, Mathieu Lapointe, Rafael S. Kurusu & Nathalie Tufenkji
Department of Construction Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure, University of Quebec, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Zhen Liu & Benoit Barbeau
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S.A.F, M.L. and N.T. conceived and designed the project and prepared the manuscript. S.A.F., M.L. and R.S.K. performed the experiments with synthetic wastewater. S.A.F., Z.L. and B.B. sourced the municipal wastewater influents, activated sludge-treated samples and aerated lagoon water samples and performed the relevant experiments. M.L. designed and constructed the reactor for pilot-scale experiments. M.L. initiated the concept of the correlation between nanoplastics and TSS removal. S.A.F. derived the mathematical model and designed the modelling approach and visual elements of the paper.
Correspondence to Mathieu Lapointe or Nathalie Tufenkji.
M.L. and N.T. have applied for a patent on the use of fibre-based materials for water treatment. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Water thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Abi Farraj, S., Lapointe, M., Kurusu, R.S. et al. Targeting nanoplastic and microplastic removal in treated wastewater with a simple indicator. Nat Water (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00177-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00177-3
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