Sand/Granular Carbon Filtration Treatment System for Removing Aqueous Pesticide Residues from a Marine Toxicology Laboratory Effluent

摘要

Flow-through toxicity tests using marine organisms can generate large volumes of contaminated sea water effluent which should be treated to remove the contaminants before being discharged into the environment. The authors have developed a sand filtration/activated carbon treatment system that removes a diversity of organophosphate, organochlorine and pyrethroid pesticide residues from these effluents. The sand filter removes from 60 to 97% of the chemicals by continuously filtering suspended particulates and associated chemicals as well as by facilitating partitioning of chemicals from water to organic material in the sand filter. Following sand filtration, effluent water slowly percolates through granular activated carbon. Overall, removal efficiencies exceed 90%. The organic material and associated chemicals are backwashed from the sand weekly, separated and concentrated by gravity and packaged for disposal.