Electrochemical removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) using modular water reuse system

Facing water shortages, water reuse offers an opportunity to significantly expand supplies of freshwater in communities. Water reuse demands technologies that can efficiently remove emerging contaminants from effluent discharge. Pharmaceuticals are recognized as emerging contaminants due to their bioactivity, wide usage, potential health and ecological risks. Phase I will demonstrate the feasibility ofefficient degradation of pharmaceutical compound, paracetamol, through the use a modular electrochemical reactor and electrochemical advanced oxidation process. The proposed technology has the potential to be considerably more environmentally friendly, energy efficiency, and cost efficiency via increasing the destruction rate of pollutants and reducing the energy processing consumption in comparison with conventional electrochemical treatments. Effluent after treatment will be “fresh” water without any salts, chemicals or harmful chemicals. The reactor will be designed with modular scale which can be flexibly applied in small and/or large treatment system via replication of a comparatively simple repeating unit, and can be installed in a variety of configurations and locations not suitable for other technological approaches. With the ubiquity of potential release sources of pharmaceuticals, including pharmaceutical companies, disposal of unused/expired pharmaceutical products, drugs, and vaccines from hospitals and households and others, the scope of the need for highly activepharmaceuticals remediation technologies is very huge. Thus, the potential market for sales of the proposed wastewater treatment system is substantial. The proposed technology is anticipated to be integrated and/or transitioned into wastewater treatment plants of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, hospital and municipal wastewater plants.