Physico-chemical wastewater treatment

Wastewater reclamation strategies aimed at closing industrial water cycles and recovery of valuable components will in most cases require a combination of wastewater treatment unit operations. Biological unit operations are commonly applied as the core treatment. In addition, physico-chemical unit operations are frequently required for pre- or post-treatment of the biological process in order to design the most optimal treatment configuration. This chapter presents a review of physico-chemical unit operations that are frequently applied in combination with biological treatment. Physico-chemical wastewater treatment includes all treatment unit operations that are not based on biological conversion. The underlying removal principles are based on either phase separation, molecular separation or chemical conversio