Development of a hybrid technology for treating recalcitrant water contaminants- assessing e-beam potential.

制造业面临着资源限制、水资源保护和废物处理等不断升级的挑战，同时试图减少其碳足迹。工业内部越来越意识到，要达到自然系统的效率还有很长的路要走，在自然系统中，水、金属和有机物等资源显然可以毫不费力地回收或转化为清洁能源。这已经足够具有挑战性了，但更令人生畏的是，从关键制造过程中产生的管道末端工业废水，如金属加工和电镀、垃圾填埋场渗滤液，都是高浓度、有毒的化学混合物，化学成分在时间上波动很大。到目前为止，这类废水被认为是严重的环境问题，处理成本高，依赖于高资本和能源要求高的技术，如反渗透和超过滤。然而，随着气候变化和自然资源压力的增加，行业的态度已经改变，现在的驱动资源回收和现场处理，以减少与运输相关的碳足迹。人们越来越关注的是，人们越来越认识到，目前旨在从顽固废水中回收废水的废水技术程序都需要能源，而且效率低下。这需要在一个重要但被忽视的领域进行彻底的新思考。本研究的目的是开发新的方法，特别是测试新的技术组合（生物催化，零价纳米铁[nZVI]和电子束加速器）来处理顽固的和化学混合的工业废水。主要重点是减少开发过程的能源需求，并协调互补技术，以可持续地降解有机成分和沉淀，固定和实现金属回收，同时回收水。化学混合废水和氯污染的地面将通过利用能够生物转化这些污染物的微生物来评估可处理性。这一步骤将去除废水中易于降解的成分，留下顽固残留物，这些残留物将转移到后续处理暴露中，包括添加零价纳米铁（nZVI）。这是一个高度反应性的步骤，催化顽固残留物的化学分解，包括大型聚合物和化学复合物，从而使它们更有利于最终的最终生物降解步骤。生物预处理的难处理废水残留物也将通过暴露在电子束下进行处理，导致辐射分解，产生H+和OH-自由基，导致剧烈的还原和氧化条件，并且有机物质对微生物处理变得更加生物可利用。nZVI与电子束的新组合，加上最后的生物降解步骤，我们相信将导致大多数顽固残留物的破坏。将建立平行实验室测试，以确定所有三种处理（微生物、nZVI和电子束）对金属化学状态、固定和沉淀回收的有效性。将调查范围广泛的废水，包括管道末端的工业废水和受污染的地下水。一个关键问题是，将已开发的将有机成分转化为有用产品的技术的可行性，以及金属的回收是可行的、可扩展的，并且随着一些发展可以商业化。这项研究的主要重点将是电子束组件，特别是评估提高其效率的程序，降低其能源需求，因为这将是商业可行性的关键要求。我们还将确定在生物降解组分处理结束时最有效的微生物细胞。

Manufacture is faced with the escalating challenges of resource limitation, conservation of water and the treatment of waste, whilst attempting to reduce its carbon foot-print. There is increasing realisation within industry that it is a long way from achieving the efficiency of natural systems where resources such as water, metals and organics are apparently effortlessly recycled or transformed to clean energy. This is challenging enough but it is even more daunting with the realisation that end-of-pipe industrial effluent from key manufacturing processes, such as metal working and plating, landfill leachate, are chemically mixed with high concentrations, toxic and temporally fluctuate enormously in terms chemical composition. Until now such effluents have been considered to be significant environmental problems, costly to deal with and reliant on high capital, and energy demanding technologies, such as reverse osmosis and ultra-filtration. However, with climate change and increasing pressure on natural resources industry's attitude has changed with the drive now on resource recovery and treatment on site, in order to reduce the carbon foot print associated with transportation. A growing concern is the increasing realisation that current wastewater technology procedures aimed at end-of-pipe recovery from recalcitrant effluent, are all energy demanding and inefficient. This requires radical new thinking in an important but neglected area.The objective of this study is develop new approaches and in particularly test novel technological combinations (biocatalysis, zero valent nano-Fe [nZVI] and electron beam accelerators) for treating recalcitrant and chemically mixed industrial waste waters. The primary focus is to reduce the energy demand of the developed process and to harmonise the complementary technologies to sustainably degrade the organic component and precipitation, immobilisation and enable metal recovery, whilst recovering the water. Chemically mixed wastewater and chlorine contaminated ground will be assessed for treat-ability by exploiting microbes able to biotransform such contaminants. This step will remove the readily degradable component of the effluent leaving the recalcitrant residues, that will be transferred to subsequent treatment exposures including addition of zero valent nano-Fe (nZVI). This is a highly reactive step, catalysing the chemical disintegration of recalcitrant residues, including large polymers and chemical complexes, so making them more conducive to final a final biodegradation step. Biological pre-treated recalcitrant effluent residues will also be treated by exposure to the e-beam, leading to radiolysis, production of H+ and OH- radicals, resulting in vigorous reducing and oxidations conditions, and the organic becoming more bioavailable to microbiological treatment. The novel combination of nZVI with the e-beam, with a final biodegradation step we believe will lead to the destruction of most recalcitrant residues. Parallel lab tests will be established to determine the effectiveness of all three treatments (microbiological, nZVI and e-beam) on the chemical state of the metals, immobilisation and recovery by precipitation.A broad range of waste waters will be investigated, both end-of- pipe industrial and contaminated ground-waters. A key issue will be the feasibility of converting developed technologies for transforming the organic component to useful products and recovery of the metals are feasible, scale-able and can with some development be commercialised.The primary focus of this study will be the e-beam component, in particularly assessment of procedures for improving its efficiency, lowering its energy requirement since will be a key requirement in order to being commercially viable. We will also determine the most effective microbial cells at the end of the biodegradative component of the treatment.