Membrane bioreactor and rapid sand filtration for the removal of microplastics in an urban wastewater treatment plant

This paper discusses about the role of two different wastewater treatment technologies in the abatement of microplastics (MPs) from the final effluent of an urban wastewater treatment plant (WWTP); i.e., membrane bioreactor technology (MBR) and rapid sand filtration (RSF). For this purpose, a WWTP with these two technologies was monitored for 18 months. The average microplastic concentration was 4.40 ± 1.01 MP L−1 for the influent, 0.92 ± 0.21 MP L−1 for MBR, and 1.08 ± 0.28 MP L−1 for RSF, without statistically significant differences for MPs removal between both technologies (F-test = 0.195, p = 0.661). The main MP forms isolated in our study were fibers (1.34 ± 0.23 items L−1), followed by films (0.59 ± 0.24 items L−1), fragments (0.20 ± 0.09 items L−1), and beads (0.02 ± 0.01 items L−1). All of them probed to be statistically significant reduced after both technologies, but without statistically significant differences between them. The MP removal efficiency was 79.01% and 75.49% for MBR and RSF, respectively, although higher for microplastic particulate forms (MPPs), 98.83% and 95.53%, than for fibers, 57.65% and 53.83% for MBR and RSF, respectively, displaying a selective removal of particulate forms against microfibers. Fourteen different plastic polymers were identified in the influent, only persisting low-density polyethylene (LDPE), nylon (NYL), and polyvinyl (PV) in RSF effluent, and melamine (MUF) after MBR treatment. The MP size ranged from 210 μm, corresponding to NYL fragment form in the influent, to 6.3 mm, corresponding to a red microfiber also from the influent. The maximum MP average size significantly decreased from MBR (1.39 ± 0.15 mm), to RSF (1.15 ± 0.08 mm) and influent (1.05 ± 0.05 mm) (F-test = 4.014, p = 0.019), exhibiting the fiber selection carried out by these advanced technologies for wastewater treatment.