Reverse osmosis concentrate treatment by microbubble ozonation-biological activated carbon process: Organics removal performance and environmental impact assessment

Abstract Reverse osmosis (RO) is being used in many water reclamation facilities to produce high quality water that can be reused for different purposes. As a part of the RO process, a reject stream is produced as the reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC), which contains elevated levels of contaminants compared to the source water. Effective treatment and safe disposal of ROC via cost-effective means is very challenging. This study aims to develop a robust microbubble ozonation–biological process for industrial ROC treatment with a target effluent chemical oxygen demand (COD) lower than 60 mg/L. As compared to macrobubble ozonation, microbubble ozonation exhibited better ozone dissolution and 29% higher COD removal efficiency with the same ozone dosage. Under the optimum operating conditions with ozone dosage of 30 mg/L, ROC natural pH of 8.67 and ozonation duration of 1 h, microbubble ozonation achieved 42% COD removal efficiency while increasing the BOD5/COD ratio (ratio of biological oxygen demand over 5 days to the corresponding chemical oxygen demand) in ROC from 0.042 to 0.216. A biological activated carbon (BAC) column with an empty bed contact time (EBCT) of 120 min was combined with microbubble ozonation for continuous ROC treatment. Over the 100-day operation, the combined system performed consistent organics removal with an average effluent COD of 45 mg/L. Both LC-OCD data and fluorescence EEM spectra confirmed humic substances were the dominant organic species in ROC. Ozone pre-treatment could achieve significant removal of humic substances in raw ROC. ATP analysis found that ozone pre-treatment enhanced BAC biofilm activity by around 5 folds. 5 min acute toxicity assessment with Aliivibrio fischeri showed 4 times reduction of bioluminescence inhibition in ozone treated ROC. From the environmental point of view, Life cycle assessment (LCA) results demonstrated that Ozone-BAC system had significant environmental burdens on climate change and human toxicity due to the electricity production process. These environmental impacts can be mitigated by optimizing the ozonation process with reduced ozone dosage or utilizing renewable energy sources for electricity generation.