In 2024 the Eawag working group “Advanced wastewater treatment”, namely Prof. Urs von Gunten, EPFL Lausanne/Eawag, Prof. Juliane Hollender, ETH Zurich, Dr. Christa McArdell, Dr. Adriano Joss, Marc Böhler and Dr. Christian Abegglen, Eawag, and Prof. em. Hansruedi Siegrist, ETH Zurich, received the Sandmeyer Award for the team’s outstanding achievements in using chemistry to address a challenge of large societal im-portance: securing clean water.
As part of the Chimia's laureates issue 7-8/2025, the team published a review article with the title "Advanced Wastewater Treatment by Ozonation for Abatement of Micropollutants from Municipal Wastewater Effluents"
Abstract
Municipal wastewater treatment plants are important contributors to the discharge of micropollutants to the aquatic environment. Therefore, in Switzerland it has been decided to treat the water at these point sources to reduce the discharge of micropollutants from municipal wastewater effluents. A team of scientists at Eawag has evaluated treatment options, which need to be readily available, easily applicable, and cheap. Based on a rigorous assessment, activated carbon-based processes and ozonation were selected. In this paper the focus is on ozonation, and the different aspects of its application are discussed, including kinetics and mechanisms for ozone reactions with micropollutants and matrix components, formation, and fate of transformation products in biological post-filtration and toxicological aspects. Finally, upgrading of ozonation is described including outreach of this approach to other countries.
The article is accessible open access on the website of Chimia.
PMID: 40838401
Keywords: Ecosystem health, Enhanced municipal wastewater treatment, Micropollutant abatement, Ozonation
David Spichiger, SCS
29.08.2025