Moderate pre-ozonation coupled with a post-peroxone process remove filamentous cyanobacteria and 2-MIB efficiently: From bench to pilot-scale study.

The increasing frequency and intensity of taste- and odour-producing cyanobacteria in water sources is a growing global issue. Odour events caused by 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB) mainly arising from filamentous cyanobacteria have been a very common problem in water supply. Removal rates of filamentous cyanobacteria and 2-MIB by conventional water treatment, such as coagulation, and disinfection treatment processes is low. Hence, a moderate pre-ozonation of cyanobacteria (with little cell damage) was proposed in this study as an enhanced coagulation step to remove filamentous cyanobacteria and intracellular 2-MIB effectively, while avoiding the release of intracellular 2-MIB. A post-peroxone (O/HO) process was applied after sand filtration to degrade the residual dissolved 2-MIB. Results show that moderate pre-ozonation (0.2 mg/L O oxidation for 20 min) can substantially enhance the coagulation efficiency for algae, with low cell lysis and high cell viability. Furthermore, 2.0 mg/L O combined with 2.0 mg/L HO can degrade the residual dissolved 2-MIB nearly 100% after 20 min reaction. Based on the optimal dosages, a 0.6 m/h pilot system, including pre-ozonation, coagulation and sedimentation, sand filtration, and post-peroxone processes, was continuously run for 14 days, and it was found that the proposed process can effectively and stably remove filamentous cyanobacteria and 2-MIB.