The Water Environment Research Foundation announced on 22 September 2008 a request for proposals (RFP) for research that will reduce or remove trace organic compounds (TOrCs) from the liquid wastewater treatment stream. The research will allow wastewater agencies to apply site-specific processes in their treatment facilities.
The International Desalination Association recently pointed out that membranes used in desalination operations were the only technology that consistently removed more than 90% or all these types of contaminants found in drinking water. This is because, said IDA spokesperson Tom Pankratz, “they are designed to dissolve ionic constituents from solution”.
The research will inform the wastewater treatment and the regulatory communities on a number of fronts. First, it must identify missing empirical information on the fates of specific TOrC during conventional wastewater treatment. It must explain the functional relationships between process variables and TOrC fate in conventional treatment. Finally, the research must provide predictive models relating compound removal efficiency to process operational variables and compound-specific physical/chemical parameters.
WERF expects that first-generation models will be basic, but will seek model refinement as the scientific community gains more understanding of the fates of additional TOrCs during wastewater treatment.
Proposals must be received by 5:00 pm EDT (10pm GMT) on 11 November 2008.
The complete RFP can be viewed at the WERF website