Microplastics concentration from Primary Sludge Liquor using UF membranes

This study is focused on the supernatant stream of primary sludge thickening, named Primary Sludge Liquor (PSL), from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). Microplastics (MPs) separation trials were conducted by ultrafiltration membrane technique (UF) to determine its optimal functioning conditions. The objective was to concentrate microplastics (MPs) in the reject stream while maintaining nutrients of interest in the permeate stream. Results have shown that UH050 membrane achieves its best performance at low transmembrane pressure, such as 0.5 bar. Permeate flux remained stable after the initial decay. Volume reduction factor (VRF) of 2 was achieved leading to MPs concentration in the rejection stream. The results suggest promising pathways for enhancing nutrient recovery and MPs concentration, paving the way for more sustainable waste management practices. Ongoing experiments are being tested in order to broaden these studies to MF techniques and other streams such as centrate from sludge dewatering process, coming after an anaerobic digester.