Research Projects

Hospitals are critical centers for medical care, yet their increasing reliance on different pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) generates a significant amount of wastewater laden with persistent organic micropollutants (MPs). The existing conventional WWTPs are not specifically equipped to eliminate such MPs, leading to environmental contamination. Consequently, these contaminants persist in the environment, exacerbating ecological impact and accelerating the emergence of antibiotic resistance, an urgent public health concern. The main aim of this research proposal is to develop scalable and sustainable redox-cycled packed bed bioreactor (PBBR) system as a decentralized solution for specific hospital wastewater treatment. The key novel aspects are fabricating and utilization of novel biocarriers and establishing redox-cycled PBBR to reduce overall footprint of the treatment. The surface engineered biocarriers will be fabricated via coating with sewage-sludge derived green adsorbent on Hel-X® conventional media. This will in turn could reduce the startup period of the reactor and enhance the MPs adsorption facilitating effective substate mass transfer into the biofilm. The reactor will be operated in a controlled intermittent aeration to facilitate the cycled anoxic and aerobic conditions in the single bioreactor, promoting efficient biodegradation of targeted MPs due to presence of diverse class of microorganisms. The comprehensive lab-scale experiments will evaluate the reactor performance under different operational conditions, such as hydraulic retention time, COD/Nitrogen ratio, aeration cycle, and recirculation ratio. For deriving the optimal operational conditions, based on the large set of data collected during experiments, advanced simulation tools, such as artificial neural network will be used. With the help of advanced analytical tools, including HPLC, LC-MS/MS, IC, and TOC analysis, treatment performance, biotransformation products, and mineralization efficiency will be assessed. Further, microbial community analysis and extraction of extracellular polymeric substances will be carried out to understand the biofilm response under MPs exposure, providing insights into microbial shift. Additionally, an ecotoxicity assessment will confirm the environmentally safety and reuse suitability of treated effluents. Ultimately, these research findings will facilitate the lab-scale experiments to pilot scale system suitable for actual deployment in hospitals. The successful implementation of this sustainable and energy-efficient bioreactor would significantly reduce the PhACs load on different environmental compartments, thus safeguarding water quality and public health.