Occurrence and removal of microplastics in an advanced drinking water treatment plant (ADWTP)

Microplastics (MPs) have attracted worldwide attention as the emerging persistent pollutants. Since they have been detected in raw water and the treated water of drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs), there was an urgent need to explore the properties and fates of microplastics in DWTPs. The characteristics of the effluent MPs from each treatment unit in an advanced drinking water treatment plant (ADWTP) were studied, and the relationship between the variations of MPs and the removal performances of treatment processes was also explored. Overall, both the coagulation combined with sedimentation and the granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration performed well in removing microplastics. The former had a removal efficiency of about 40.5-54.5%, mainly for fibres' removal, and the presence of GAC filtration reduced the microplastic abundance by about 56.8-60.9%, mainly for small-sized MPs. It was worthy of attention that a larger amount of polyacrylamide (PAM) was detected in the effluent of the sedimentation compared to raw water, which was caused by the usage of coagulant containing PAM. Specially, the number of 1-5 μm MPs in the effluent of ozonation tank was increased by 2.8-16.0%, resulting in a negative removal efficiency in ozonation. The removals of microplastics were depended primarily on their physical properties (size and shape).