Trace organic contaminants abatement by permanganate/bisulfite pretreatment coupled with conventional water treatment processes: Lab- and pilot-scale tests

Bisulfite-activated permanganate (PM/BS) process has proven to be a promising method for trace organic contaminants (TrOCs) abatement. However, to our knowledge, most previous studies on PM/BS process were limited in synthetic water at lab-scale. Hence, the performance of TrOCs abatement by PM/BS process was investigated in real waters in this study, and for the first time, its feasibility as a pretreatment process was evaluated at pilot-scale. The lab-scale results indicated that almost all tested TrOCs could be completely removed from pure water, while their removal efficiencies varied widely from ∼20 % to ∼90 % in real waters. Correlation analysis suggested that TrOCs abatement decreased linearly with increasing concentration of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and halide ions in real waters. The TrOCs with electron-donating groups were more likely to be decomposed in PM/BS process. The PM/BS pretreatment produced MnO₂ and decreased the aromatic signal of the DOM, which enhanced the removal of DOM during subsequent coagulation-sedimentation processes. Comparing with ozonation, chlorination, and permanganate processes, PM/BS process showed some advantages in terms of TrOCs abatement and operating costs. Furthermore, the pilot-scale experiment confirmed that PM/BS process combined with traditional water treatment processes could achieve excellent TrOCs abatement (greater than 84%).