Environmental Factors and the Application of Hydrogen Peroxide for the Removal of Toxic Cyanobacteria from Waste Stabilization Ponds
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 137, Issue 10
Abstract
Toxin-producing cyanobacteria constitute a serious threat to human and environmental health. It is thus essential that an effective treatment guarantees the removal of cyanobacteria from wastewater before its inclusion in water recycling or environmental flow. Hydrogen peroxide () has been shown to induce cyanobacterial decay in laboratory cultures. However, its application for the removal of cyanobacteria from wastewater treatment ponds under environmental conditions has not been investigated. To examine the effects of environmental factors, field trials were performed at both the mesocosm and full-scale levels. The mesocosm trial was completed under field conditions of incident radiation, with various concentrations. A concentration of chl- resulted in a 32% decrease in cyanobacterial concentration after 24 h, and this approximate concentration was then applied to a wastewater treatment pond in the full-scale trial. In the full-scale experiment, intense spatial and temporal monitoring of phytoplankton concentrations and temperature throughout the pond was performed. Cyanobacterial biomass was reduced by 57% and total phytoplankton biomass by 70% within 48 h of addition. Mixing and radiation were shown to control the depth reached by following addition to the ponds. The synergistic effect of addition with environmental factors increased the effectiveness of cyanobacterial removal compared with laboratory experiments. The concentration of required for the removal of cyanobacteria under field conditions may be decreased from laboratory studies by an order of magnitude.
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Acknowledgments
This project was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Project funding scheme (UNSPECIFIEDLP0776571). The authors are grateful to B. Kerenyi, D. Puzey, C. Evans, P. Kumar, C. Crisafio, G. Bertrand, S. Sinang, L. Zhu, P. Legendre, P. Hanson, E. Reichwaldt, and H. Barrington for their assistance with this study.
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 137 • Issue 10 • October 2011
Pages: 952 - 960
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 8, 2010
Accepted: Apr 6, 2011
Published online: Apr 8, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2011
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