Publications by authors named "L C Rietveld"

Article Synopsis
  • Activated carbon is used to remove organic micropollutants (OMPs) from water, but its effectiveness decreases due to interference from background dissolved organic matter (DOM) which exists in much higher concentrations.
  • Understanding the factors that influence DOM competitiveness, such as molecular weight, aromaticity, and polarity, is key to improving OMP adsorption efficiency in natural waters.
  • The study shows that nonpolar, medium aromaticity DOM compounds are significant in DOM competitiveness, and highlights the complex interactions between aromaticity and polarity, suggesting that relying on aromaticity alone is insufficient for predicting DOM behavior.
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Long-term consumption of groundwater containing elevated levels of arsenic (As) can have severe health consequences, including cancer. To effectively remove As, conventional treatment technologies require expensive chemical oxidants to oxidise neutral arsenite (As(III)) in groundwater to negatively charged arsenate (As(V)), which is more easily removed. Rapid sand filter beds used in conventional aeration-filtration to treat anaerobic groundwater can naturally oxidise As(III) through biological processes but require an additional step to remove the generated As(V), adding complexity and cost.

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Sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) is widely used for the chemical cleaning of fouled ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. Various studies performed on polymeric membranes demonstrate that long-term (>100 h) exposure to NaClO deteriorates the physicochemical properties of the membranes, leading to reduced performance and service life. However, the effect of NaClO cleaning on ceramic membranes, particularly the number of cleaning cycles they can undergo to alleviate irreversible fouling, remains poorly understood.

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The present study investigated the utilization of blood clam shells as a potential substitute for conventional media, as well as the influence of the acclimation time on the efficacy of an intermittent slow sand filter (ISSF) in the treatment of real domestic wastewater. ISSF was operated with 16 h on and 8 h off, focusing on the parameters of turbidity, ammonia, and phosphate. Two media combinations (only blood clam shells [CC] and sand + blood clam shells [SC]) were operated under two different acclimatization periods (14 and 28 d).

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There is a global need for optimizing the use of water that has resulted from increased demand due to industrial development, population growth, climate change and the pollution of natural water resources. One of the solutions is to use reclaimed water in industrial applications that do not require water of potable quality, such as cooling water. However, for cooling water, (treated) wastewater's hardness is too high, apart from having a high load of suspended solids and organic matter.

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