A techno-environmental assessment from microplastic characterization to its removal by innovative technologies
Author(s):
Minh Nhat Nguyen†, Lan Huong Nguyen‡, Xuan Phuong Nguyen‡†, Tri Hieu Le‡†, Van Viet Pham‡†,*
Affiliation(s):
† Institute of Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH), Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
‡ School of Mechanical Engineering, Vietnam Maritime University, Hai Phong, Viet Nam
‡† Institute of Maritime, Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
Corresponding Author Email: [email protected]
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Environmental pollution, plastic waste pollution has been posing many challenges for sustainable development. It is currently estimated that the annual emissions of microplastics derived from petrochemicals into the environment are equivalent to about 11.7 million tons. With a compact size that is easy to spread, in a short time, microplastics are ubiquitous, causing widespread microplastic pollution, affecting the living environment. The microplastics occurring in municipal wastewater commonly originate from daily human life activities. In this paper, the characteristics and removal of microplastics were reviewed. The abundance of microplastics in the influent, effluent, and sludge was compared. Then, based on existing data, the removal efficiency of microplastics in critical treatment technologies were compared by quantitative analysis. Particularly, detailed mechanisms of critical treatment technologies including primary settling treatment with flocculation, bioreactor system, advanced oxidation and membrane filtration were discussed. Thereafter, the abundance load and ecological hazard of the microplastics discharged from wastewater treatment plants into the aquatic and soil environments were summarized.