Towards Effective, Sustainable Solution for Hospital Wastewater Treatment to Cope with the Post-Pandemic Era

Ang Liu, Yaqian Zhao (), Yamei Cai, Peiying Kang, Yulong Huang, Min Li and Anran Yang
Additional contact information
Ang Liu: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Yaqian Zhao: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Yamei Cai: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Peiying Kang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Yulong Huang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Min Li: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Anran Yang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread across the globe since the end of 2019, posing significant challenges for global medical facilities and human health. Treatment of hospital wastewater is vitally important under this special circumstance. However, there is a shortage of studies on the sustainable wastewater treatment processes utilized by hospitals. Based on a review of the research trends regarding hospital wastewater treatment in the past three years of the COVID-19 outbreak, this review overviews the existing hospital wastewater treatment processes. It is clear that activated sludge processes (ASPs) and the use of membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are the major and effective treatment techniques applied to hospital wastewater. Advanced technology (such as Fenton oxidation, electrocoagulation, etc.) has also achieved good results, but the use of such technology remains small scale for the moment and poses some side effects, including increased cost. More interestingly, this review reveals the increased use of constructed wetlands (CWs) as an eco-solution for hospital wastewater treatment and then focuses in slightly more detail on examining the roles and mechanisms of CWs’ components with respect to purifying hospital wastewater and compares their removal efficiency with other treatment processes. It is believed that a multi-stage CW system with various intensifications or CWs incorporated with other treatment processes constitute an effective, sustainable solution for hospital wastewater treatment in order to cope with the post-pandemic era.

Keywords: hospital wastewater; constructed wetlands; SARS-CoV-2; MBR; Fenton oxidation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/2854/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/2854/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:2854-:d:1059351

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().