Urban Stormwater Treatment with Ultrafiltration and Pulsatile Fluid Flow

• Stormwater can be a potential water resource if it is treated, and the quality meets the demand, depending on the application. Various nutrients and pollutants, for example microorganisms can enter stormwater and can vary depending on time and place, as the contaminants come from different sources. Sometimes the quality of stormwater can also deteriorate during its collection and storage. Therefore, the treatment of stormwater could be necessary before reuse and before discharge into the environment. Various treatment methods exist for this purpose. Ponds, wetlands, and bioretention systems are used in various countries to remove pollutants from stormwater. In addition to these methods, the use of membranes for stormwater treatment has become of interest.The application of membrane technology in new areas such as stormwater treatment requires a great deal of research to evaluate the potential opportunities and challenges. Research has been conducted to separate one or a few pollutants from stormwater using membranes. However, more research is needed to evaluate the applicability of using membranes for stormwater treatment, and their challenges and advantages. For this purpose, three experimental studies have been carried out. Polluted snow along a road was collected and treated using an ultrafiltration membrane. To prevent any damages to the membrane, a pretreatment step was included before the membrane process. It was of interest to evaluate the membrane process ability for treating snowmelt and to evaluate the potential for water reuse depending on regulations in different countries. Another objective was to investigate the productivity of the membrane process and try to improve it by adding pulsatile fluid flow to the experimental set-up. To investigate membrane cleaning, backwashing was carried out at regular intervals, and different backwash times and two chemical cleaning combinations were used. In addition, the fouling layer on the membrane was studied using a scanning electron microscope. Afterwards, the quality of the backwash water from the membrane cleaning was analyzed, which may be helpful in the future when looking for a suitable method to recycle the backwash water.When evaluating pulsatile fluid flow, the productivity of the membrane process increased significantly as the frequency of pulses increased (from -6.6 to 82 L/m2/h). The treated snowmelt mixture was of high quality and could be used for various applications, such as wetland maintenance, toilet flushing, and other municipal use. If the treated stormwater is disinfected, it can also be reused as drinking water. In this study, the optimal backwash duration was found to be 45 s in relation to productivity, although the backwash efficiency and permeability were higher with a backwash time of 60 s. The use of chemicals (NaOH with or without NaOCl followed by HCl) could restore the pure water permeability of the membrane to 107 L/m2/h/bar-1, in average. The pure water reversibility after chemical cleaning was 96% on average. Analysis of the backwash water showed that it is a concentrated solution of stormwater pollutants. TOC concentration was 24 times higher than pretreated stormwater. In addition, the backwash water contained significant concentrations of particulate metals and the concentration factor for various metals varied between 15 to 40.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Vattenteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Water Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

VA-teknik

Urban Water Engineering

Centrumbildning - Centrum för dagvattenhantering (DRIZZLE)

Centre - Centre for Stormwater Management (DRIZZLE)

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