The GreenWaterTech project have performed research and development work on new remediation technologies to remove chemicals of emerging concern (CEC) and antibiotics from water. A new type of modular technology for ultra-filtration of water consisting of three serial treatment steps has been developed in the project. The basic idea is to cover a broad spectrum of CECs in a matrix of organic compounds. CECs are by design resilient towards natural degradation processes and therefore accumulate in ecosystems and persists over long time. While there are available methods to remove all known chemicals from water, they are either hazardous to health and environment, expensive and/or require elaborate production and administration procedures. In the present project we explicitly use sustainable methods and materials, and devise “green” water remediation technologies. Green catalysis, particularly by means advanced oxidation processes has emerged as a promising method for removing persistent chemicals from water. In the project we combined two such approaches (step 2 and 3) with a new adsorbent material (step 1). The proposed technology can be used as a final CEC treatment step added to existing water treatments, or as a stand-alone unit to clean point sources. The project has demonstrated complete removals of pharmaceuticals from wastewater effluents from WWTPs on semi-pilot scale.
