On-site treatment of hospital wastewater in a full-scale treatment plant in Germany: SARS-CoV-2 and treatment performance

The separate, advanced treatment of hospital wastewater might be a promising approach to prevent the dissemination of residual compounds of high environmental concern, like pharmaceuticals, viruses and pathogenic microorganisms. This study investigates the performance of a full-scale, on-site treatm...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water science and technology 2023-04, Vol.87 (7), p.1747-1763
Main Authors: Haeusser, Sarah, Weber, Martin, Mauer, Christian, Linnemann, Volker, Pfannstiel, Anna, Pinnekamp, Johannes, Wintgens, Thomas, Klümper, Claudia, Beier, Silvio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
advanced wastewater treatment
Antibiotics
Bacteria
Biomarkers
Biomonitoring
Bioreactors
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Design
Disease control
Drug resistance
Drugs
Effluents
Environmental perception
Germany
Health services
Health surveillance
Hospital wastes
hospital wastewater
Hospitals
Humans
Influents
Investigations
Laboratories
Medical wastes
Microorganisms
micropollutants
Nucleic acids
Onsite
Ozonation
Ozonization
Pandemics
Parameters
Pathogens
Pharmaceutical Preparations
Pharmaceuticals
Raw wastewater
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
RNA, Viral
SARS-CoV-2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Surgery
Telemedicine
Viral diseases
Viruses
Wastewater
wastewater monitoring
Wastewater treatment
wastewater-based surveillance
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Summary:The separate, advanced treatment of hospital wastewater might be a promising approach to prevent the dissemination of residual compounds of high environmental concern, like pharmaceuticals, viruses and pathogenic microorganisms. This study investigates the performance of a full-scale, on-site treatment plant, consisting of a membrane bioreactor and a subsequent ozonation, at a German hospital. We analysed the elimination of pharmaceutical residues, microbiological parameters and SARS-CoV-2 RNA fragments. Additionally, we conducted an orienting study on the practicability of implementing targeted wastewater monitoring at a hospital. Our results demonstrate that after 10 years of stable operation, the treatment plant works highly efficiently regarding the elimination of pharmaceuticals and bacterial indicators. Elimination rates for pharmaceutical substances were above 90%, and log reductions of up to 6 log units for microbiological parameters were achieved. SARS-CoV-2 RNA could be detected and quantified in the influent but not in the effluent. The RNA load in the raw wastewater showed good correspondence with COVID-19 case numbers in the hospital. We showed that the full-scale on-site treatment of hospital wastewater is technically feasible and contributes to sustainable hospital effluent management and that monitoring biological markers on the building level might be a useful complementary tool for disease surveillance.
ISSN:0273-1223
1996-9732
DOI:10.2166/wst.2023.088