Removal of pharmaceutical compounds and PFAS from wastewater, drinking water and groundwater

The presence of micropollutants in different water types is raising increasing concerns, in relation to their harmful effects on human health and ecosystems, and to the growing diffusion of antibiotic resistance genes. The recent European legislation is strongly focused on the attainment of increasingly high-quality standards in water bodies and on the removal of micropollutants from wastewater.

This research activity includes:

• Batch and continuous mode tests for the screening and selection of both commercial and innovative adsorbents produced internally in UNIBO or in the framework of collaborations with other Institutions.
• Continuous breakthrough tests of pharmaceuticals and PFAS adsorption for optimizing the process operating conditions, such as bed height, empty bed contact time, superficial velocity, desorption agents and conditions.
• Kinetic and fluid dynamic modeling of the process, using software such as Comsol Multyphysics and AspenPlus. The process simulation, calibrated using experimental data obtained in continuous mode, enables the investigation of the effect of different design parameters on process performance and the model-based design of full-scale processes.
• Economic analysis of the process. The analysis of investment and operational costs is based on the design of full-scale processes.

All tests are conducted with actual wastewater in order to take into account matrix effects. In the framework of this research line, a 60 L/day fully automated pilot plant aimed at the removal of pharmaceutical compounds from municipal wastewater is currently in operation (June 2025) in a wastewater treatment plant under real-world conditions.