Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) represent pollutants of emerging concern, originating in surface and drinking waters largely from their persistence in drinking water/ wastewater effluent. PhACs have been present in some environments at levels higher enough to harm aquatic organisms. PhACs during conventional (e.g. activated sludge) wastewater treatment and during advanced (e.g. ozonation and membrane filtration) treatment processes are not efficiently removed. Most of the advanced treatment methods demand new infrastructure increasing treatment costs. In this context, novel biochar-enzyme impregnated micro and nano systems (BEMS/BENS) can be developed that can lead to the complete removal of these emerging pollutants in the treated wastewater/water streams without extra infrastructure input. The proposed project comprises the following objectives: 1) Development of different biochar-ligninolytic enzyme impregnated micro and nano systems (BEMS/BENS); 2) Performance testing of BEMS/BENS using simulated wastewater/water comprising major PhACs, such as carbamazepine, gemfibrozil, naproxen, diclofenac and sulfamethoxazole; 3) Techno-economical analysis of the best performing technologies and 4) Bench scale study of techno-economical processes in real wastewater conditions. In addition to providing occurrence data, the project will probe the fate of these compounds during treatment in BEMS/BENS to measure the impact of the treatment technique giving important information on the persistence or transformation and residual toxicity of these compounds. The proposed project will have significant environmental and economical impact as it will lead to an innovative method for treatment of wastewaters/waters laced with PhACs and the developed technology can enhance the already existing strong Canadian environmental technology sector in the field of wastewater and water treatment. The project will also add important database on PhACs for the federal environmental regulatory agencies protecting health and environment. Furthermore, this research is very timely in generating HQP in this upcoming and critical environmental field.