Y

ou get up in the morning All of these substances are removed

and stagger to a sparkling
clean shower. Then, you
power up your supercharged
toothbrush and dress in your
favorite clothes. Oops! We forgot
the chore nobody mentions. After you woke up, you also
eliminated wastes your body produced during the night
and sent them gurgling down the toilet’s drain. Out of
sight and away they went, to that subterranean place no
one wants to go to. Or even look. Or smell. E-e-eew. The
sewer!
Which raises the question: Where does sewage go?
Some of it comes back to your water faucet or in water
bottles. How does this all happen? Here is the story of
sewage, a substance that we would rather ignore by let-
ting it stay underground but which resurfaces in unsus-
pected ways.
Recycling of sewage
photos by istock and photos.com
from sewage in wastewater treatment
plants. Wastewater treatment happens in
four stages (Fig. 1):
1. Physical treatment: Heavy solids settle to the
bottom while grease and lighter solids float to the
surface;
2. Biological treatment: Bacteria are used to remove
dissolved and suspended matter;
3. Filtration: Remaining impurities are eliminated;
4. Disinfection: Remaining bacteria are killed with ultra-
violet light or chemicals.
Let’s look at these four stages to see how wastewater
becomes the water you just drank at lunch or dinner.
Keep in mind that additional processes for wastewater
treatment are added to meet U.S. Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) standards for public water systems.
Step 1: Physical treatment
This stage of wastewater treatment takes advantage

Sewage, also called wastewater, contains substances
such as human waste, food, grease, soap, and other
organic matter. Sewage from homes contains water from
sinks, showers, bathtubs, toilets, washing machines, and
dishwashers. Sewage also contains bacteria and viruses,
mostly derived from human waste.
of several key physical properties—the size, solubility,
and density of the waste material. Large particles pres-
ent in the sewage, including anything from sand and
silt to stones, tree branches, facial tissues, and socks,
are trapped, and ultimately removed, by mesh screens.
Dense, insoluble waste sinks to the bottom, and “liquid

Is this
Water
?
istock

Recycled Sewage By Gail Kay Haines

8 Chemmatters, FEBRUARY 2011 www.acs.org/chemmatters

 port of portland airport

istock

istock
The Living Machine system is a patented product A reverse osmosis system, such as the one shown Aerial view of settling tanks at a
developed by Worrell Water Technologies, LLC. The Living here, is used in a sewage treatment plant to filter sewage treatment plant. Large pieces
Machine technology is a new approach to wastewater inorganic salts that remain in the water. of materials settle at the bottom of
treatment employing the natural ecological process of a these tanks and are later removed and
tidal wetland, enhanced by environmental science and reprocessed.
information technology.

grease”—which includes oils,

waxes, and soaps—forms a layer Bar screens catch Grit chambers
Your house large debris like Gravity pulls the 6 NO3– + 5 CH3OH + 6 H+
lighter than water at the top and is
Anthony Fernandez; adapted from figure at: http://www.rewaonline.org/treatment-process.php

Water from your pipes branches or rocks larger particles to

enters the sewer the bottom of the tank ➔ 5 CO2 + 3 N2 + 13 H2O
skimmed off. The skimmed sub- Biological treatment
Removal of nitrogen-
stances are sent to the landfill, and containing compounds
and organic impurities
Therefore, the denitrification
the sunken material becomes solid
process removes both nitrates
waste called sludge. Settling tanks and organic matter (carbon-based
What remains in the water are Large particles separated
from water and sent on compounds) from the wastewater.
microscopic particles that are sus- for reprocessing
At the end of this process, the
pended as colloids. These particles, Solids removed from
the water are bacteria sink to the bottom, leaving
which have diameters ranging from reprocessed to Filtration
become fertilizer clear water at the top.
0.001 to 1 micrometer, consist of or are sent to landfills
groups of molecules or ions that
are bound together, but they do not Step 3: Filtration
Disinfection with
break up and dissolve as individual The decomposition of organic chlorine
ions or molecules. The removal Disinfection substances usually results in the
of these colloidal particles is par- Harmful nutrients
are removed Clean water put back production of inorganic salts,
ticularly important because they into local streams and rivers
many of which remain in the
include viruses and bacteria. Later water. These salts can be removed
stages of treatment will facilitate Figure 1. The various steps of the wastewater treatment process using filtration techniques such as
the removal of these substances reverse osmosis.
from water. Osmosis is a process in which
is ammonia (NH3). First, nitrifying bacteria water moves across a semipermeable mem-
Step 2: Biological convert ammonia into nitrate ions (NO3–) in a brane from an area of low solute concentra-
two-step process: tion to high solute concentration. This process
treatment requires no energy input.
While we often think about bacteria as 2 NH3 + 3 O2 ➔ 2 NO2– (nitrite ion)
substances that might cause harm, bacteria + 2 H+ + 2 H2O
are actually used in the wastewater treatment
2 NO2– + O2 ➔ 2 NO3– (nitrate ion)
process to remove certain dissolved and
suspended contaminants from water. One of
mike ciesielski

the most important ways in which bacteria Then, denitrifying bacteria convert the
are used is to convert nitrogen-containing nitrate ions into nitrogen. This is a reaction
compounds into nitrogen gas (N2) that is then that requires a substance to be oxidized.
bubbled out of the water into the atmosphere. Methanol (CH 3OH) is one of the best choices
This process occurs in two stages: nitrification for such a substance because it is usually
and denitrification. present in wastewater. Methanol is con-
One of the most common nitrogen- verted to carbon dioxide (CO2) in the follow-
containing compounds present in wastewater ing reaction:

chemmatters, FEBRUARY 2011 9

 Osmosis
Pressure
Reverse osmosis
Step 4: This water percolates into the ground to
enhance the water supply. Months later, it
Disinfection works through the soil and becomes actual
Low solute Low solute In some wastewater treatment drinking water again.
concemtration concentration

High solute
plants, the water is further disin- Recharging has been occurring for the past
High solute
concentration Flow solution Flow fected before being released into 30 years. According to the EPA, every major
bodies of natural water. Chlorine body of water in the United States contains
Semipermeable membrane Semipermeable membrane
(Cl2) is a common water disin- some purified wastewater.
Cross section of purifying tube fectant. Now that we know what happens to our
Semipermeable
Water molecules forced Chlorine has been used to dis- wastewater, we may feel good about the fact
through membrane
membrane
Purified infect drinking water since 1897. that it is reused to irrigate fields or heat build-
water
When chlorine is added to water,
ings. But are we ready to drink it? We don’t
it quickly hydrolyzes to form
even know whether the water we drink every
Contaminated solution hypochlorous acid (HOCl) and
Contaminated solution day has been recycled. Since most of us are
feed/input (water under hydrochloric acid (HCl):
pressure) still healthy after drinking it, well, that may be
Unwanted contaminant
molecules left behind the evidence we were looking for!
Cl2 + H2O ➔ HOCl + HCl

Figure 2. How reverse osmosis works Of the two acids,

hypochlorous acid is the most potent
disinfectant. It kills disease-carrying
Reverse osmosis uses pressure to force bacteria by penetrating their outer
water to move in the opposite way. This layer.
illustration by anthony fernandez, based on figure (p. 100) in “chemistry in the community”, w.h. freeman, 5th ED

process uses a membrane through which One major drawback of chlorine

ions cannot travel (Fig. 2). The surface of the is that it reacts with organic matter
membrane is about 0.2 micrometers thick to create cancer-causing byproducts
and is relatively nonporous. Because only called trihalomethanes.
water can go through the membrane, the liq- Ozone (O3) is also used in some
uid on the other side of the membrane is pure municipalities to disinfect wastewater

mike ciesielski
water. On the other side of the membrane, because it is very effective at killing
the contaminated solution becomes more and viruses and bacteria.
more contaminated in salt and is eventually
discarded. Ready to drink it? Check out the video podcast on sewage
Water filtered by various methods can be
The final product is probably cleaner than recycling at: www.acs.org/chemmatters
pumped through special purple pipes—the
most tap water, and safe as the safest bottled
international color for recycled water—and
product. But does this sanitized sewer water
used for city irrigation, parks and roof gardens,
feed directly into homes? Actually, no. Treat-
a boat-washing station, and all of the sanitation
ment plants throughout the United States Selected references
for the wastewater treatment plant itself.
often put fully treated water into bodies of Wastewater treatment – Water Use, U.S. Geological
This water is used differently depending Survey: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wuww.
water so that it is filtered down as rainwater.
on the needs of the local areas. For example, html [accessed Aug 2010].
This process is called recharging. The waters
Portland, Ore., has turned its airport into a Royte, E. The Last Drop. National Geographic, April
blend and become one fresh, clean source. 2010, pp 172–176.
“living building,” where its own wastewater
irrigates, flushes, and even provides heat for Jjemba, Wastewater Treatment Principles and
Regulations, The Ohio State University,
lobbies and offices. Columbus, Ohio: http://ohioline.osu.edu/aex-
Santa Rosa, Calif., injects 12 million gal- fact/0768.html [accessed Aug 2010].
lons of treated water into mile-deep cracks in Advanced Wastewater Treatment, Mountain Empire
Community College, Big Stone Cap, Va.: http://
the Earth to re-supply dried-up geysers. Hot, water.me.vccs.edu/courses/ENV149/advanced.
underground rocks boil the water, and the htm [accessed Aug 2010].
steam generates enough electricity to power Disinfection of Water and Wastewater – Norwalk
200,000 homes, eliminating millions of tons Wastewater Equipment Company (NorWECO),
Norwalk, Ohio: http://www.norweco.com/html/
of potential air pollution. lab/Disinfection.htm [accessed Aug 2010].

After water has been filtered in a wastewater Gail Kay Haines is a science writer and book
treatment plant, you can use a home water author from Olympia, Wash. Her most recent
mike ciesielski

filter to remove calcium and magnesium, ChemMatters article, “Chocolate: The New Health
known to cause “scales” inside pipes, water Food. Or Is It?” appeared in the April 2009 issue.
heaters and tea kettles.

10 Chemmatters, FEBRUARY2011 www.acs.org/chemmatters