[Introduction]:
Heavy metals are among the most frequent water and soil pollutants in Europe and discharges into the environment can lead to devastating effects on aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Numerous treatment technologies exist for the removal of heavy metals from natural waters and wastewaters, but most of them produce concentrated sludges that need to be stored in controlled hazardous waste disposal sites.
In industry, by far the most widely used treatment process for wastewater is hydroxide precipitation. However, it is also well known that precipitation with sulphide has some fundamental advantages like lower effluent concentration and possibility of selective precipitation.
[Research]:
The research will be conducted in several phases:
- Studies on heavy metal precipitation with sulphide and biogenic sulphide.
- Development and modelling of a novel bioreactor to perform sulphate reduction.
- Incorporate the bioreactor in a selective precipitation sistem. |
