Enhanced water treatment practices

Fast Facts

  • The Alliance is a partnership between the Queensland government, CSIRO, The University of Queensland and Griffith University, Brisbane
  • This project is a research partnership between CSIRO, University of QLD and the Queensland Government, collaborating with CabWater and Veolia Water.
  • The project investigates alternatives to MF/RO (Micro Filtration and Reverse Osmosis) technologies to produce Purified Recycled Water (PRW).
  • These technologies are not suited to inland environments due to the production of a highly saline concentrate stream.
  • Alternative technologies are expected to achieve comparable quality purified water without the production of a saline stream. These are being investigated in this project to demonstrate suitable production methods and the achievable water quality.

 

Technologies to enhance existing recycling plant performance to achieve Purified Recycled Water (PRW)

Background
Objectives
Outcomes
The partners

Background

Most water recycling plants in Australia utilise membrane technology, specifically MF/RO (Micro Filtration and Reverse Osmosis) technologies, to produce Purified Recycled Water (PRW).

One of the major drawbacks of these processes is that in addition to high quality PRW, they also produce a highly saline by-product.

Disposing of this by-product can pose challenges for locations not close to the ocean or saline or near brackish waterways.

There are, however, a number of other highly effective treatment processes better suited for producing recycled water in inland regions, as they do not use membrane technologies, or at least produce no or a much smaller concentrated by-product.

Locally, existing recycling plants such as South Caboolture and Landsborough are already achieving very high water quality standards without using membranes.

There are, additionally, several mainly small- to medium-size Australian wastewater treatment plants that, given a better understanding of the effectiveness and risks of non-membrane technologies, could be upgraded to produce PWR with potentially less complex and costly processes than MF/RO membranes.

Objectives

This project has two main objectives:

  1. To assess the capability of existing alternative technologies currently used in non-membrane recycling plants in the region to produce Purified Recycled Water, and to compare the results to performance of similar plants overseas.
  2. To evaluate novel treatment technologies that could be integrated into these plants to further reduce residual risk. The newly released draft guidelines for water recycling to augment drinking water supplies will be used to determine the suitability of the existing or modified processes for PRW production.

Outcomes

The outcomes of this project will be applicable to a number of wastewater treatment plants nationally that stand to benefit from process upgrades to produce high-quality recycled water, and especially those in locations that make the disposal of a highly saline concentrate stream difficult.

The partners

This project is a research partnership between CSIRO, University of QLD and the Queensland Government, collaborating with CabWater and Veolia Water.

Contact: Dr Julien Reungoat
Advanced Water Management Centre
Level 4, Gehrmann Building (60)
University of Queensland QLD 4072
Ph: 07-3346 6251
Fax: 07-3365 4726
Email: j.reungoat@awmc.uq.edu.au

Read about more of our research.