Title : Solar heterogeneous photocatalysis and photochemistry for urban wastewater regeneration and reuse
Abstract:
Water scarcity, inadequate sanitation and the socioeconomic gap between urban and rural areas represent significant barriers to sustainable development and promote disparities regarding access to resources, opportunities and basic services. Addressing the world water crisis, conventional treatments could not be applied for the removal of Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) or the inactivation of pathogenic microorganisms. Herein, solar photocatalysis with immobilized materials and solar photochemistry are currently investigated as a viable and simple-to-operate technologies for water treatment and reuse within specific atmospheric and operational environments.
The design, development and evaluation of new affordable photocatalytic reactors integrated with innovative sets of immobilized catalysts for the simultaneous disinfection and elimination of CECs from different wastewater matrices at pilot scale will be presented.
In addition, the performance and scaling up of solar photoreactors for photochemical applications for reusing urban wastewater in crop irrigation at DEMO scale will be also shown. Potential improvements in combination of natural based solutions (mainly wetlands) with solar photochemistry in open photoreactors will be also widely discussed.
Nowadays challenges and overview on future perspectives and benchmarking technologies for urban wastewater reuse in different environments with different necessities, will be also tackled.
Audience Take Away Notes:
- The audience will learn the bases and insights of solar catalytic technologies for urban treated wastewater reuse as an alternative source of water.
- Practical cases will be shown at different TRL to provide practical solutions to water scarcity in the Mediterranean Region based on renewable energies.
- Nexus Energy-Water-Food will be tackled as a key tool to fight against the detrimental consequences of Climate Change.
