Enhanced treatment of coke oven plant wastewater (ECOWATER) : Final report

The first objective of the project ECOWATER was to address the challenges faced by the steel industry to fulfil the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Accordingly, research was carried out in this area to characterise, quantify and measure the environmental impacts of key pollutants including a series of trace metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in wastewater effluents from cokemaking and steelmaking operations. The second aspect of ECOWATER was concerned with the investigation of the potential of state-of-the-art molecular biology techniques for understanding further the biodegradation processes taking place in coke oven biological effluent treatment (BET) plants. In recent years, there has been an explosion in the molecular biology techniques in environmental microbiology. Accordingly, for the first time, a range of novel molecular biology techniques were used and developed to study microbial communities in biosludges and identify unculturable microorganisms that plays a major role in the degradation of organic pollutants such as phenols and PAHs. The third important aspect of the ECOWATER project was concerned with the development of innovative technological solutions for the removal of key WFD substances in wastewater effluents from the steel industry. Several innovative abatement solutions were tested at the pilot scale including the application of a photocatalytic oxidation process using anatase (TiO2), the use of sorbents such as powdered activated lignite and zeolites, and a new high efficiency filtration technology (Fuzzy filtration)