Sustainable Approach to Industrial-Wastewater Treatment

Dear Colleagues,

The natural environment is our heritage, the well-being we are obliged to protect. As one of the basic natural resources, man has used water for centuries, constituting the basis of his existence. The intensive development of civilisation that we have observed in recent centuries, and in particular the industrial revolution, cause climate change and the degradation of natural resources, including water. Very intensive, and sometimes even predatory, human activity, both in developing and highly developed areas, causes pollution of waters, especially surface waters. The lack of sufficient water protection activities results in continuous pollution of rivers, and thus seas and oceans,

We are responsible for the quality of the natural environment we will leave to the next generations. It is our collective responsibility to care for the well-being of our planet. One of the essential elements is the development and continuous improvement of the operation quality of systems and devices used in industrial wastewater treatment systems.

Therefore, an important task from the point of view of implementing the principles of sustainable development is to conduct rational water management, striving to create closed-circuit systems that are friendly to society, the environment and the economy. In open or semi-open systems, striving to minimise the negative impact of technology on the environment.

Emerging new technologies, methods, and devices allow the use of new solutions in new systems and existing modernised installations, which enable high-effective protection against pollution. The areas being developed include research on new highly effective coagulants, in particular modified coagulants, precisely matched to the parameters of treated wastewater and work on organic coagulants. Work on new methods of removing heavy metals, e.g., dissolved air flotation. Alternatively, work on the use of nanotechnology in the treatment of industrial wastewater.

Noteworthy are also works related to technologies allowing for the intensification of the separation of the dispersion phase from wastewater, particularly the use of shallow sedimentation. Including works on using multi-stream sedimentation to purify non-grained suspensions, in which the dispersion fraction consists of hard-settling flocs with an irregular structure. The works carried out in this area are very promising. They indicate that, similarly to granular suspensions, it allows for a significant reduction in the space requirement concerning large classic settling tanks.

A fundamental technology used in wastewater treatment systems is biological wastewater treatment. A technology that allows for removing pollutants from wastewater through appropriately intensified natural processes. The technology in which sludge is formed, which, when fermented, allows, among others, biogas production. Under certain conditions, using activated sludge technology makes it possible to build energy-self-sufficient systems.

Another crucial element in sustainable development is the use of modern tools and methods in the design of equipment and processes in wastewater treatment, as well as in the analysis of the operation of existing systems. The use of numerical methods that allow modelling the flow through the sedimentation devices already carries much information, e.g. it allows for optimising systems in which flow occurs. The second element worth mentioning is numerical methods for modelling multiphase systems. Obtaining answers on the course of processes, even before their implementation, will allow for optimising devices and systems to minimise costs and expenditures for the implementation of the purification process.

Implementing each of the abovementioned issues is essential for developing knowledge, science and technology in modern wastewater treatment technologies, particularly industrial wastewater. Therefore, we invite you to publish your articles in our Special Issue. We trust that reading these texts will be helpful to a wide range of scientists and engineers dealing with the issues of broadly understood wastewater treatment technologies.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Marian Banaś
Dr. Krzysztof Kołodziejczyk
Guest Editors

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• industrial wastewater treatment
• sustainability
• suspension
• biotechnologies
• sedimentation
• settling tanks
• lamella sedimentation
• electrocoagulation
• microfiltration
• dissolved air flotation
• toxic metals removal
• anionic surfactant
• energy system
• nanotechnology