parasites are present in the water, then the transparent jerrycan is able to reduce their active concentration to a level that is considered safe by WHO standards.”
Multifunctional Reactor operated by project partner AQUASOIL in the tertiary wastewater treatment facility of Fasano (Italy)
Transparent jerrycan
New technologies for safer water Around 2.1 billion people across the world lack access to safe water, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the problem is particularly acute in India. The PANIWATER project is developing new technologies to remove dangerous contaminants from both wastewater and drinking water, as Dr Fabio Ugolini explains. A significant proportion of the Indian population still lacks access to safe drinking water, while potentially hazardous contaminants are present in wastewater effluents across the world, representing a major threat to public health. Researchers in the PANIWATER project, an initiative bringing together partners from across Europe and India, are working to develop technologies to remove these contaminants from both drinking water and wastewater in periurban and rural areas across India. “There are six technologies under development in the project. Three are for the treatment of wastewater, and three are for the treatment of drinking water,” says Dr Fabio Ugolini, a project manager at Innova, one of the partners in the PANIWATER consortium. These technologies are all designed to remove contaminants from water, with five of the six using advanced oxidation processes in their function. “With advanced oxidation processes chemical or physical agents are used to generate hydroxyl radical species. These hydroxyl radical species are very powerful oxidants, and they can destroy contaminants,” he explains. 32
Contaminants of emerging concern These technologies are designed to remove both known contaminants and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) from wastewater and drinking water, such as certain pharmaceuticals, hormones and antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes. These CECs have typically not yet been included in water quality guidelines, as their impact on health and the environment is not fully understood, yet Dr Ugolini says that ideally they should not be present in water. “Under the precautionary principle, as we don’t know exactly how they may affect health, these CECs should not be in water,” he outlines. These CECs are mostly the result of human activities and are typically present in trace amounts in drinking water, or in water discharged into the environment following primary and secondary treatment. “In primary wastewater treatment, all the solids from the water are removed. Then in secondary treatment, most dissolved contaminants are broken down,” he says. “At this level wastewater is generally considered
to be legally safe for discharge into groundwater or to be used for irrigation, but an extra step can be added, which is tertiary treatment.” This is what the wastewater technologies under development in the project are designed for, with researchers using advanced oxidation processes to eliminate trace amounts of different contaminants. The three drinking water technologies work on a different basis. “They work on raw water – essentially rainwater, ground water or surface water – which comes from an unimproved source prone to contamination,” explains Dr Ugolini. An unimproved source doesn’t have any sort of protection in place, which can leave the water vulnerable to contamination, an issue that the drinking water technologies are designed to address. “These technologies are focused specifically on the removal of biological contamination, which is an issue that can cause a lot of trouble in low-income countries,” he continues. “The transparent jerrycan being developed in the project removes only biological contaminants. If bacteria and
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The transparent jerrycan uses sunlight to disinfect water, making it safe to drink. Jerrycans are commonly used by people across India to transfer their stored water, which is one of the reasons why Dr Ugolini and his colleagues in the project identified this as an important area of research. “We decided to go with a solution that people are familiar with, but we have engineered it in such a way that we can exploit solar disinfection,” he outlines. The transparent jerrycan is intended for use at the community level, and he says a lot of effort is being devoted to encouraging people to use it. “You need to work with the communities first, to explain why they need to change the way that they’ve been using or accessing their water, and you have to gain their trust. You have to essentially trigger a behavioural change,” he continues. “We work with organisations in India that are already present in rural communities through other development or education projects, so that they can first of all recruit the participants.”
Researchers Bhairavi Sawant (Royal College of Surgeons In Ireland, Dublin, Ireland) and Umakant Tripathi (TARAgram, Orchha, Bundelkhand, India) collecting water samples from the village of Bagan and performing on site water quality analysis.
Wastewater treatment A further strand of the project centres around developing wastewater treatment technologies, where cost and efficacy are generally the most prominent considerations in deciding whether to adopt the technology. One technology under development is a multi-functional reactor, which is designed to work in combination with both centralised and de-centralised wastewater treatment plants. “These reactors can be applied to essentially any wastewater treatment plant facility,” says Dr Ugolini. These reactors can be added to the wastewater treatment train to improve the quality of water before it is discharged; the technology has already been validated in Italy, and he says its effectiveness will be assessed in field trials in India. “The scientific parameter is essentially water quality measurements after treatment in real conditions. We want to check the output of the technologies and the quality of the water that comes out – does this meet WHO standards for wastewater discharge and reuse?” he outlines. “If we are able to reduce the levels of any contaminant below what is expected, then it’s considered a success.” There are no clear guidelines for what are considered to be safe levels of CECs, so the
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Raw water from an unprotected source collected by a woman in Bundelkhand.
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PANIWATER Photo-irradiation and Adsorption based Novel Innovations for Water-treatment
Project Objectives
PANIWATER is validating six protypes for wastewater and drinking water treatment, which can remove Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs). The goal is to increase the availability of safe drinking water to the minimum level recommended by the WHO (at least 7.5 L/person/day) in target communities in India, and to produce at least 10000L /day, of irrigation-grade water from wastewater.
Project Funding
PANIWATER has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 820718, and is jointly funded by the European Commission and the Department of Science and Technology of India (DST).
Project Partners
http://www.paniwater.eu/about-us/
Contact Details
Dr. Fabio Ugolini Ph.D Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Manager INNOVA Srl Via Giacomo Peroni, 386 00131 Rome - Italy T: +39 06 40040358 E: f.ugolini@innova-eu.net W: www.paniwater.eu Project coordinator (EU): Prof. Kevin McGuigan, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. E: kmcguigan@rcsi.ie Project coordinator (IN): Prof. Rita Dhodapkar, CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. E: rs_Dhodapkar@neeri.res.in Dr. Fabio Ugolini Ph.D
Dr. Fabio Ugolini holds a Ph.D in natural sciences, focusing on drinking water microbiology. He works in several Horizon projects as Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Manager, as well as Coordinator. He is a hopeful environmentalist and a strong supporter of scientific communication.
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Consortium representatives and secondary school pupils meeting during the PANIWATER pre-pandemic general assembly in Goa (IN), 2020.
aim here will be to measure the reduction rate rather than relate it to a specific set of standards. The other five technologies will also be trialled at sites across India; with the transparent jerrycan, this will include not just measurements of water quality, but also other parameters. “We’re also going to measure adherence to the programme by the people recruited in the field trials,” says Dr Ugolini. Researchers are also looking at proxy parameters that can indicate whether the technology is having a positive impact on quality of life, such as the incidence of disease. “Diarrhea is pretty strongly associated with low-quality
a thorough understanding of the political context, resource constraints, social fabric, gender issues, economic and environmental vulnerabilities, and of the people´s own needs and desires. Our Indian partners have implemented a multi-stakeholder engagement approach, which includes extensive dialogue with the community leaders and the institutions, focus groups, workshops, activities with schools and a radio program” says Dr Ugolini. “It is not sufficient to simply handover a few flyers about the project without building trust and awareness in the community for whom the project is meant.”
With advanced oxidation processes chemical or physical agents are used to generate hydroxyl radical species. These hydroxyl radical species are very powerful oxidants, and they can destroy contaminants. water, so that would be the primary proxy indicator,” he continues. “Improvements in quality of life are normally assessed through questionnaires. However, certain biases may arise when we do that, as there is a tendency among the people being interviewed to try and please the interviewer.” This issue is being considered within PANIWATER, with two of the consortium partners conducting social science research, part of the project’s work in engaging with local communities. The project’s Indian partners have carried out several different initiatives, aiming to communicate the benefits of these technologies and encourage people to accept them. “Our Indian partners have engaged extensively with community leaders. They have held a lot of meetings and talked to a lot of people, they’ve also set up a radio programme in order to reach out to the community,” he says. “We need to integrate social and cultural factors in our approach to promote the sustained uptake of new water technologies. Community outreach requires
The wider aim here is to encourage the adoption of these technologies. Once they have been applied, and their impact is clearer, they could then be produced in greater volumes. “The two technologies that are closest to wider adoption are the multi-functional reactor for wastewater treatment and the transparent jerrycan. We have identified an Indian manufacturer that can produce the jerrycans to the required specifications,” he outlines. Once the field trials have concluded and the effectiveness of the transparent jerrycan is clearer, then the manufacturer can look to take further steps. “They can then produce more of these jerrycans and put in place a distribution system,” continues Dr Ugolini. “We can look to take a more or less similar path with the other technologies. We need to locate an Indian stakeholder that can manufacture and distribute the technologies, then we would look towards transferring all the information and intellectual property rights to our partners in India.”
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