Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 3

This research project involving Center of Water Technology (CTE) and BioLargo Water Inc is based on acollege-industry collaboration. This project plans to address specific technical needs of BioLargo Water relatedto the development of the AOS for the decontamination and disinfection of municipal wastewater (MWW).The AOS technology is an advanced electrochemical oxidation process using a catalytic electrode and having multiple configurations, varying in both electrode geometry and size. In collaboration with Cteau, BioLargoWater would like to continue the development and optimization of the AOS technology as a tertiary treatment unit for both disinfection and decontamination of MWW at pilot scale. This project will focus on optimizing the contact time and current density necessary to achieve bacterial disinfection and degradation of PPs while expanding the contaminants of interest to include viruses and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs), bothemergent contaminants of concern in MWW. The research project will be structure according to the following three steps. The first activity aims to evaluate the disinfection of bacteria and viruses as well as the PPsremoval efficiency under optimal conditions including reduced contact times and current densities. The second activity aims to evaluate the degradation of the PFAs using the AOS reactor at laboratory and large scale. The third activity will compare conventional advanced oxidation processes (O3/H2O2 and UV lamps) to the AOS to determine the most effective process, in both performance and cost, for treating MWW strongly loaded with organic contaminants. Accordingly, a technical-economic analysis will be generated. This project will benefit from a unique expertise combining electrochemical oxidation techniques and analysis of emergentcontaminants, and an already operational R&D infrastructures, an ingredient essential to the achievement of theobjectives of the project.