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Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants
The fate of Coronaviruses (CoVs) and in particular SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has not been completely understood yet, but an adequate knowledge on the removal performances in WWTPs could help to prevent waterborne transmission of the virus that is still under debate. CoVs and...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Elsevier Inc.
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8516124/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34656637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112204 |
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author | Foladori, Paola Cutrupi, Francesca Cadonna, Maria Manara, Serena |
author_facet | Foladori, Paola Cutrupi, Francesca Cadonna, Maria Manara, Serena |
author_sort | Foladori, Paola |
collection | PubMed |
description | The fate of Coronaviruses (CoVs) and in particular SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has not been completely understood yet, but an adequate knowledge on the removal performances in WWTPs could help to prevent waterborne transmission of the virus that is still under debate. CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 are discharged from faeces into the sewer network and reach WWTPs within a few hours. This review presents the fate of SARS-CoV-2 and other CoVs in the primary, secondary and tertiary treatments of WWTPs as well as in sludge treatments. The viral loads decrease progressively along with the treatments from 20 to 3.0E+06 GU/L (Genomic Units/L) in the influent wastewater to concentrations below 2.50E+05 GU/L after secondary biological treatments and finally to negative concentrations (below detection limit) in disinfected effluents. Reduction of CoVs is due to (i) natural decay under unfavourable conditions (solids, microorganisms, temperature) for relatively long hydraulic retention times and (ii) processes of sedimentation, filtration, predation, adsorption, disinfection. In primary and secondary settling, due to the hydrophobic properties, a partial accumulation of CoVs may occur in the separated sludge. In secondary treatment (i.e. activated sludge) CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 loads can be reduced only by about one logarithm (∼90%). To enhance this removal, tertiary treatment with ultrafiltration (Membrane Bioreactors) and chemical disinfection or UV light is needed. CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 in the sludge (1.2E+04–4.6E+08 GU/L) can be inactivated significantly in the thermophilic digestion (55 °C), while mesophilic temperatures (33–37 °C) are not efficient. Additional studies are required to investigate the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 in WWTPs, especially in view of increasing interest in wastewater reclamation and reuse. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8516124 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Elsevier Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85161242021-10-14 Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants Foladori, Paola Cutrupi, Francesca Cadonna, Maria Manara, Serena Environ Res Article The fate of Coronaviruses (CoVs) and in particular SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has not been completely understood yet, but an adequate knowledge on the removal performances in WWTPs could help to prevent waterborne transmission of the virus that is still under debate. CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 are discharged from faeces into the sewer network and reach WWTPs within a few hours. This review presents the fate of SARS-CoV-2 and other CoVs in the primary, secondary and tertiary treatments of WWTPs as well as in sludge treatments. The viral loads decrease progressively along with the treatments from 20 to 3.0E+06 GU/L (Genomic Units/L) in the influent wastewater to concentrations below 2.50E+05 GU/L after secondary biological treatments and finally to negative concentrations (below detection limit) in disinfected effluents. Reduction of CoVs is due to (i) natural decay under unfavourable conditions (solids, microorganisms, temperature) for relatively long hydraulic retention times and (ii) processes of sedimentation, filtration, predation, adsorption, disinfection. In primary and secondary settling, due to the hydrophobic properties, a partial accumulation of CoVs may occur in the separated sludge. In secondary treatment (i.e. activated sludge) CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 loads can be reduced only by about one logarithm (∼90%). To enhance this removal, tertiary treatment with ultrafiltration (Membrane Bioreactors) and chemical disinfection or UV light is needed. CoVs and SARS-CoV-2 in the sludge (1.2E+04–4.6E+08 GU/L) can be inactivated significantly in the thermophilic digestion (55 °C), while mesophilic temperatures (33–37 °C) are not efficient. Additional studies are required to investigate the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 in WWTPs, especially in view of increasing interest in wastewater reclamation and reuse. Elsevier Inc. 2022-05-01 2021-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8516124/ /pubmed/34656637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112204 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Foladori, Paola Cutrupi, Francesca Cadonna, Maria Manara, Serena Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
title | Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
title_full | Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
title_fullStr | Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
title_full_unstemmed | Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
title_short | Coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in sewerage and their removal: Step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
title_sort | coronaviruses and sars-cov-2 in sewerage and their removal: step by step in wastewater treatment plants |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8516124/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34656637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112204 |
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