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Hospital Wastewaters: Quali-Quantitative Characterization and for Strategies for Their Treatment and Disposal

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Wastewater Reuse and Management

Abstract

Hospital wastewaters comprise the effluents of various services: general (kitchen, internal laundry, heating and cooling systems), diagnostic (laboratories, radiology departments, outpatient departments, transfusion centres) and wards (general medicine, surgery, specialities, haemodialysis, etc.). Due to the nature and quantity of the micropollutants they harbour, such as active substances of medicines and their metabolites, chemicals, heavy metals, disinfectants, sterilizers and radioactive markers, which are typically present at concentrations of μg L−1, they should be earmarked for special consideration. By law, however, hospital effluents are often considered to be in the same pollutant class as urban wastewaters and so are generally discharged into (municipal) sewage networks, collected at a wastewater treatment plant and co-treated along with them.

However, although dilution of hospital effluents with urban wastewaters usually results in a reduction of the pharmaceutical compound content in the final effluent (from μg L−1 to ng L−1), it does not affect the total load, that is, the quantity released daily into the receiving water body.

This chapter analyses the differences between the effluent of hospitals and urban settlements in terms of hydraulic and pollutant load, discusses whether distinction should be made between these two types of wastewaters and evaluates potential strategies for management of hospital effluents (co-treatment or dedicated strategies). Finally, it presents and discusses the most appropriate treatment for hospital wastewaters, based on the results of the recent research into the removal of pharmaceutical compounds from wastewaters.

An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4942-9_18

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  1. Department of Engineering, University of Ferrara, Via G. Saragat 1, Ferrara, I-44122, Italy

    P. Verlicchi, A. Galletti & M. Al Aukidy

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  1. Department of Chemistry, JECRC University, Shri Ram ki Nangal, via Sitapura RIICO, Tonk Road, Jaipur, 302 022, Rajasthan, India

    Sanjay K. Sharma

  2. , # R-2 Media Lab, Indian Institute of Technology, Nankari, Kanpur, 208016, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Rashmi Sanghi

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Verlicchi, P., Galletti, A., Al Aukidy, M. (2013). Hospital Wastewaters: Quali-Quantitative Characterization and for Strategies for Their Treatment and Disposal. In: Sharma, S., Sanghi, R. (eds) Wastewater Reuse and Management. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4942-9_8

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