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INTEGRATION OF FILTRATION AND ADVANCED OXIDATION: DEVELOPMENT OF A MEMBRANE LIQUID-PHASE PLASMA REACTOR
Impact/Purpose:
The main objective of this study is to engineer, develop and demonstrate an integrated process comprised of membrane technology (i.e., ceramic NF, UF or MF) and electrical discharge plasma generated via a novel reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) electrode material. The reasons for this integration are four-fold: (1) the novel RVC electrode material will significantly improve the efficiency and longevity of the electrical discharge; (2) the membrane process protects the porous electrode material from clogging and removes constituents targeted in conventional water treatment processes and that reduce the effectiveness of the advanced oxidation processes; (3) both the membrane and electrical discharge remove pathogens; and (4) electrical discharge is effective for the destruction of a wide variety of organic contaminants and contaminant precursors.
The major hypotheses that will be tested are as follows:
H1: Significant energy reduction and increases contaminant degradation rates can be achieved by optimizing the RVC electrode porosity, thickness and configuration, and power supply parameters.
H2: The electrical discharge results in fundamentally different reaction pathways than ‘conventional’ AOPs due to reactions with UV light and reductive species.
H3: Degradation efficiency can be significantly improved by the removal of particles and dissolved organic matter by membrane treatment.
H4: The membrane/plasma technology can be scaled to larger systems.
Description:
A tiered approach will be undertaken to achieve the overall project goal of demonstrating the integrated membrane/plasma process as an innovative, affordable, sustainable and effective treatment technology for small treatment systems. The team will first use a regimented approach to carefully select contaminants to investigate and evaluate the plasma process. Fundamental bench-scale studies will then be undertaken to investigate and optimize the plasma and membrane systems as individual and integrated processes. Findings from fundamental studies will be used to develop a scalable engineered membrane/plasma process that will be tested under carefully controlled conditions. Finally, long-term testing will be conducted with the developed system at small treatment systems to fully demonstrate the scalable membrane/plasma system.