Circular economy is one of the most topical challenges of recent years. Its applicability, in all its facets, was studied in this PhD thesis carried out at Huvepharma Italia s.r.l. (Garessio, CN) in collaboration with the University of Turin, dealing with the two main wastes of this pharmaceutical company (wastewater and sludge) in a circular perspective. Nowadays, wastewater treatment plants should adopt and apply the circular economy principles—a concept revolving around keeping materials and products in the economy as long as possible by promoting recycle and reuse—both at small- and large-scale applications. At this regard, the reuse of industrial wastewater as a harmless hydric resource under adequate sanitary conditions could be a real possibility in the near feature in the context of an increasingly circular economy. However, the treatment of industrial wastewater effluents is currently a very complex challenge due to the broad array of substances and high concentrations that it can contain. Indeed, the discharge of effluent from the pharmaceutical industries is a major source of environmental pollution due to the toxic and at times carcinogenic nature of contaminants. One feasible option for removing organic pollutants from wastewater is the application of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) or their combinations with other non-conventional treatments. Among others, acoustic or hydrodynamic cavitation are a well-known technology that could be applied alone or in combination with other AOPs (such as photocatalytic oxidation or ozonation) for wastewater treatment. These methods have been commonly recognized as being highly capable for removing recalcitrant contaminants or being used as pretreatment to transform contaminants into shorter-chain compounds that can be treated after by traditional biological processes. In this way, studies about combined AOPs technologies for treating some complex industrial wastewaters have greatly increased in recent years. As a first step, in this PhD thesis carried out at Huvepharma Italia s.r.l. attempts to investigate which are the existing technologies suitable for antibiotics degradation in wastewater have been carried out and documented in a review paper. These compounds, coming from pharmaceutical industry effluents (PIE), are considered as emerging pollutants due to their persistence in aquatic ecosystems. In particular, even at low concentrations, these pollutants contribute to the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance, while their degradation is still a longstanding challenge for wastewater treatment. In the presented literature survey, we review the recent advances in synergistic techniques for antibiotic degradation in wastewater that combine either ultrasound (US) or hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and oxidative, photo-catalytic, and enzymatic strategies. However, due to the lack of efficient methods to remove tetracyclines from wastewater, a remarkable research effort on the remediation of this antibiotics produced by Huvepharam Italia s.r.l. has been undertaken. According to this, the synergistic effect of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and electrical discharge (ED) plasma on the degradation of tetracyclines in water has been studied first in this PhD thesis developing a new hybrid HC/ED wastewater degradation protocol based on the combination of both the above-mentioned technologies. As a second step, the effectiveness of the developed hybrid AOP protocol was exploited on the real wastewater produced by Huveph arma Italia s.r.l. both in term of percentage reduction of COD (chemical oxygen demand), TOC (total organic carbon) and surfactant content. Moreover, the reactor design of this new HC/ED plasma hybrid device was considered and adapted for a potential and future industrial-scale application on PIE decontamination in a flow-through mode. As a second part of this thesis, an attempt was also made to valorise the semi-solid waste generated by Huvepharam Italia s.r.l., the sludge, from a circular economy perspective. First, a new sludge drying plant was developed on Huvepharma site to reduce the water content in the sludge (75% reduction target) in order to eventually exploit the resulting solid residue for energy purposes (pellets) or as an adsorbent material for wastewater remediation. In conclusion, to move back from waste to the pharmaceutical industry, another solid residue coming from biomass (the lignin), has been exploited for valorization purposes in a circular approach based on the "from waste to health" concept. Lignin is a fascinating bio-aromatic biopolymer with high valorization potentiality. Besides its extensive value in the biorefinery context, as a renewable source is currently under evaluation for its huge potential in biomedical applications. Besides the specific antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of lignin, that depend on its source and isolation procedure, remarkable progress has been made, over the last five years, in the isolation, functionalization and modification of lignin and lignin-derived compounds to use as carriers for biologically active substances.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY: WASTE AS RESOURCE
Canova, erica
2023-01-01
Abstract
Circular economy is one of the most topical challenges of recent years. Its applicability, in all its facets, was studied in this PhD thesis carried out at Huvepharma Italia s.r.l. (Garessio, CN) in collaboration with the University of Turin, dealing with the two main wastes of this pharmaceutical company (wastewater and sludge) in a circular perspective. Nowadays, wastewater treatment plants should adopt and apply the circular economy principles—a concept revolving around keeping materials and products in the economy as long as possible by promoting recycle and reuse—both at small- and large-scale applications. At this regard, the reuse of industrial wastewater as a harmless hydric resource under adequate sanitary conditions could be a real possibility in the near feature in the context of an increasingly circular economy. However, the treatment of industrial wastewater effluents is currently a very complex challenge due to the broad array of substances and high concentrations that it can contain. Indeed, the discharge of effluent from the pharmaceutical industries is a major source of environmental pollution due to the toxic and at times carcinogenic nature of contaminants. One feasible option for removing organic pollutants from wastewater is the application of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) or their combinations with other non-conventional treatments. Among others, acoustic or hydrodynamic cavitation are a well-known technology that could be applied alone or in combination with other AOPs (such as photocatalytic oxidation or ozonation) for wastewater treatment. These methods have been commonly recognized as being highly capable for removing recalcitrant contaminants or being used as pretreatment to transform contaminants into shorter-chain compounds that can be treated after by traditional biological processes. In this way, studies about combined AOPs technologies for treating some complex industrial wastewaters have greatly increased in recent years. As a first step, in this PhD thesis carried out at Huvepharma Italia s.r.l. attempts to investigate which are the existing technologies suitable for antibiotics degradation in wastewater have been carried out and documented in a review paper. These compounds, coming from pharmaceutical industry effluents (PIE), are considered as emerging pollutants due to their persistence in aquatic ecosystems. In particular, even at low concentrations, these pollutants contribute to the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance, while their degradation is still a longstanding challenge for wastewater treatment. In the presented literature survey, we review the recent advances in synergistic techniques for antibiotic degradation in wastewater that combine either ultrasound (US) or hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and oxidative, photo-catalytic, and enzymatic strategies. However, due to the lack of efficient methods to remove tetracyclines from wastewater, a remarkable research effort on the remediation of this antibiotics produced by Huvepharam Italia s.r.l. has been undertaken. According to this, the synergistic effect of hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and electrical discharge (ED) plasma on the degradation of tetracyclines in water has been studied first in this PhD thesis developing a new hybrid HC/ED wastewater degradation protocol based on the combination of both the above-mentioned technologies. As a second step, the effectiveness of the developed hybrid AOP protocol was exploited on the real wastewater produced by Huveph arma Italia s.r.l. both in term of percentage reduction of COD (chemical oxygen demand), TOC (total organic carbon) and surfactant content. Moreover, the reactor design of this new HC/ED plasma hybrid device was considered and adapted for a potential and future industrial-scale application on PIE decontamination in a flow-through mode. As a second part of this thesis, an attempt was also made to valorise the semi-solid waste generated by Huvepharam Italia s.r.l., the sludge, from a circular economy perspective. First, a new sludge drying plant was developed on Huvepharma site to reduce the water content in the sludge (75% reduction target) in order to eventually exploit the resulting solid residue for energy purposes (pellets) or as an adsorbent material for wastewater remediation. In conclusion, to move back from waste to the pharmaceutical industry, another solid residue coming from biomass (the lignin), has been exploited for valorization purposes in a circular approach based on the "from waste to health" concept. Lignin is a fascinating bio-aromatic biopolymer with high valorization potentiality. Besides its extensive value in the biorefinery context, as a renewable source is currently under evaluation for its huge potential in biomedical applications. Besides the specific antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of lignin, that depend on its source and isolation procedure, remarkable progress has been made, over the last five years, in the isolation, functionalization and modification of lignin and lignin-derived compounds to use as carriers for biologically active substances.
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