You are here:
Estimating Costs for Nitrate and Perchlorate Treatment for Small Drinking Water Systems
Citation:
Khera, R., P. Ransom, M. Guttridge, AND T. Speth. Estimating Costs for Nitrate and Perchlorate Treatment for Small Drinking Water Systems. AWWA Water Science. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 3(2):e1224, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1002/aws2.1224
Impact/Purpose:
This paper outlines the cost of treating nitrate and perchlorate for small drinking water systems. For the first time, biological treatment is shown to be cost effective. This is important for the water industry and any present or future regulation concerning nitrate or perchlorate.
Description:
When choosing a treatment technology for nitrate or perchlorate removal, drinking water utilities overwhelmingly choose ion exchange. However, of late, biological treatment and point-of-use systems have received a great deal of attention. This article utilizes several new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency models to estimate the cost of nitrate and perchlorate treatment for small drinking water systems. The nitrate results show that anion exchange treatment is the least-cost option for a broad range of system sizes and nitrate influent concentrations; however, for other conditions, anoxic biological treatment can be the least-cost option. For perchlorate, anion exchange resins are the least cost option for a wide range of system sizes and influent concentrations because of their high capacity and typically low perchlorate influent concentrations. Finally, for both nitrate and perchlorate, point-of-use treatment can be the least-cost option for extremely small systems.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Estimating Costs for Nitrate and Perchlorate Treatment for Small Drinking Water Systems
Free access through PubMed Central