The course received a great feedback from the practice, as shown by the high number of 92 participants from engineering offices, plant construction, administration and operators of wastewater treatment plants, who came to the Eawag/Empa Academy for two days to take part in the event.

Successful exchange of experiences and enriching discussions

In addition to the latest knowledge and developments in the field of the elimination of trace substances by adsorption on activated carbon, a larger scope was given to the exchange of experiences on these new treatment steps between operators of WWTPs. A panel discussion showed that there are still questions concerning the representativeness and the informative value of these measurements, especially when it comes to the sampling or monitoring of the treatment performance during rainwater inflow to wastewater treatment plants.

Another exciting subject of discussion was the high CO2 footprint of the use of powdered activated carbon, especially. There was unanimous agreement on the fact that biogenic products should be given priority over fossil activated carbon, when possible. It was also acknowledged that more efforts must be put into producing ideally “SWISS made” coal, both for the use as powdered carbon than granulated carbon.