Zinc-sulphate-heptahydrate coated activated carbon for microbe removal from stormwater

There is a need to develop effective stormwater filters for passive (without any addition of chemicals or energy) and effective removal of pathogens in order to mainstream stormwater harvesting. This study focuses on the development of coated granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration material in order to develop filters for effective removal of pathogens from urban stormwater. Several laboratory trials were performed to gauge the effectiveness of the filters, which use a mixture of the zinc-sulphate-heptahydrate coated GAC and sand, on the removal of Escherichia coli (E. coli) from semi-natural stormwater. On average, a 98% removal of the inflow concentration of E. coli was achieved. Furthermore, there was also an improvement of approximately 25% in the removal of phosphorous. However, it was found that the treated material was leaching zinc. It was important to determine whether the observed removal of E. coli was indirectly caused by the sampling methodology. The results showed that the inactivation of the E. coli in the collected sample was small compared with the inactivation which actually occurred within the filter. This provides much promise to the filter, but the presence of zinc in the outflow demonstrates the need for further investigation into the stabilisation of the coating process.