A performance comparison of individual and combined treatment modules for water recycling

01 November 2010

An Advanced Water Recycling Demonstration Plant (AWRDP) was commissioned and constructed by the Queensland State Government in Australia. The AWRDP was used to study the effectiveness of a variety treatment processes in the upgrading of municipal wastewater for water recycling applications. The AWRDP consists of eight modules, each housing an individual specific treatment process. These processes are flocculation, filtration, dissolved air flotation, ozonation, biological activated carbon adsorption, microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet disinfection. The individual performances of the treatment processes were determined, as well as their interdependence in series. A range of chemical water quality parameters were investigated. The study provides a broad process comparison on the basis of an important catalogue of these key parameters. This will be valuable in the selection and optimisation of treatment processes trains in full-scale water recycling applications.