THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL-CHEMICAL TREATMENT IN WASTE-WATER RECLAMATION AND REUSE

Amid the heightened public health concerns for emerging microorganisms such as cryptosporidium and enteropathogenic E. coli in the water env ironment, there have been many instances where optimization of chemica l coagulation-flocculation processes and filtration of wastewater was not achieved in practice, resulting in waste of coagulant chemicals an d breach of the multiple barriers to pathogen removal and inactivation ; thus, unnecessarily endangering public health. In addition, lack of information on the optimization of these processes has hampered the es tablishment of alternative and more cost-effective wastewater reclamat ion methods for tertiary and advanced wastewater treatment. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the basic factors affecting the o ptimization of chemical coagulation-flocculation and filtration proces ses in municipal wastewater reclamation and reuse, based on the theore tical developments and practical applications. Reference is also made to the wastewater treatment processes and operations that can produce reclaimed water with an extremely small probability of enteric virus c ontamination. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights r eserved