The trend towards the reuse of the effluent from municipal and industrial wastewater derives from the need to maximise limited water resources. In many parts of Italy it has become increasingly difficult to meet the water demand and, particularly in the South, the more and more frequent periods of drought and the costant increase of water use for civil purposes have made the irrigation supply more and more problematic. The difficulty of satisfying water demand with conventional resources makes the use of unconventional water resources, such as wastewater, a viable solution to meet water demand. Municipal wastewater is potentially the most useable because of its reliability as supply, allocation, composition and diffusion of treatment plants, and agriculture is the largest water consuming sector in Italy: it has been evaluated that 50% of water consumption is used for irrigation purposes [1]. Despite this Italian Legislation is extremely strict and represents one of the major obstacles in the development of irrigation with municipal wastewater. In Calabria (e.g.), a southern region of Italy, a decree has recently been passed and imposes the following limit values for agricultural reuse of wastewater: 10 mg/L for TSS, 50 mg/L for COD, 10 MPN/100mL for fecal Coliforms. Microbiological restrictions are excessive if compared with the giudelines issued by the WHO [2] and they don't take into account the results of research carried out all over the world and particularly in Mediterranean areas in the field of wastewater reuse [3-4]. Since the main parameters to check for a general purpose reclaimed water supply are microbial quality and TSS content and membrane ultrafiltration has been found to be a successful advanced technology in the removal of all suspended and colloidal materials [5]. Then tertiary quality effluent is produced without extra equipment since the membrane is an absolute barrier to suspended and colloidal solids, including bacteria. In this paper a 42 day pilot scale operation for the reclamation of urban wastewater is described.
AGRICULTURAL REUSE OF WASTEWATER BY USING MEMBRANES: A PILOT SCALE STUDY
F BALDASSARRE;
2002
Abstract
The trend towards the reuse of the effluent from municipal and industrial wastewater derives from the need to maximise limited water resources. In many parts of Italy it has become increasingly difficult to meet the water demand and, particularly in the South, the more and more frequent periods of drought and the costant increase of water use for civil purposes have made the irrigation supply more and more problematic. The difficulty of satisfying water demand with conventional resources makes the use of unconventional water resources, such as wastewater, a viable solution to meet water demand. Municipal wastewater is potentially the most useable because of its reliability as supply, allocation, composition and diffusion of treatment plants, and agriculture is the largest water consuming sector in Italy: it has been evaluated that 50% of water consumption is used for irrigation purposes [1]. Despite this Italian Legislation is extremely strict and represents one of the major obstacles in the development of irrigation with municipal wastewater. In Calabria (e.g.), a southern region of Italy, a decree has recently been passed and imposes the following limit values for agricultural reuse of wastewater: 10 mg/L for TSS, 50 mg/L for COD, 10 MPN/100mL for fecal Coliforms. Microbiological restrictions are excessive if compared with the giudelines issued by the WHO [2] and they don't take into account the results of research carried out all over the world and particularly in Mediterranean areas in the field of wastewater reuse [3-4]. Since the main parameters to check for a general purpose reclaimed water supply are microbial quality and TSS content and membrane ultrafiltration has been found to be a successful advanced technology in the removal of all suspended and colloidal materials [5]. Then tertiary quality effluent is produced without extra equipment since the membrane is an absolute barrier to suspended and colloidal solids, including bacteria. In this paper a 42 day pilot scale operation for the reclamation of urban wastewater is described.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
