Speaker
Description
Water reclamation and reuse has become a popular practice in arid to semi-arid regions, especially in the western United States. Conventional wastewater treatment methods often fall short of completely removing viruses, causing the introduction of myriad of viruses in the water environment with potential for hazardous impact on human health. Current fecal contamination indicators including Escherichia coli and coliform bacteria, showing high seasonal variations in their concentration, do not exhibit any significant relationships with enteric viruses in the wastewater. Plant-based viruses occur at consistently high concentrations in the wastewater—however few studies have explored their potential to be surrogates for tracking of enteric viruses in water reclamation systems. Using uniform diameter glass beads to construct homogenous columns, we conducted experiments to investigate the transport behavior of Pepper Mild Mottle Virus (PMMoV), Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus (ToBRFV), and human adenovirus (hAdV) under saturated conditions. After injecting wastewater for four pore-volumes, the columns were flushed with dechlorinated tap water for an additional six pore-volumes, Column effluents were enumerated using reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and analyzed using advection-dispersion-reaction models. Our results indicated a similar transport behavior for the ToBRFV and PMMoV marked by steep rising limb and a heavy-tailed breakthrough curve, whereas hAdV showed a significantly milder rising limb. These observations were examined by drawing insights from Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) theory and physical attributes of viruses. In addition to identifying potential surrogates for enteric viruses in water environment, this study is a step towards upscaling and extrapolating of virus transport dynamics in water reclamation systems for sustainable water reuse
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Water & Porous Media Focused Abstracts | This abstract is related to Water |
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