The COVID-19 outbreak led to the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage; thus, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) could have the virus in their effluent. However, whether SARS-CoV-2 is eradicated by sewage treatment is virtually unknown. Specifically, the objectives of this study include (i) determining whether a mixed matrixed membrane (MMM) is able to remove SARS-CoV-2 (polycarbonate (PC)-hydrous manganese oxide (HMO) and PC-silver nanoparticles (Ag-NP)), (ii) comparing filtration performance among different secondary treatment processes, and (iii) evaluating whether artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be employed as performance indicators to reduce SARS-CoV-2 in the treatment of sewage. At Shariati Hospital in Mashhad, Iran, secondary treatment effluent during the outbreak of COVID-19 was collected from a WWTP. There were two PC-Ag-NP and PC-HMO processes at the WWTP targeted. RT-qPCR was employed to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage fractions. For the purposes of determining SARS-CoV-2 prevalence rates in the treated effluent, 10 L of effluent specimens were collected in middle-risk and low-risk treatment MMMs. For PC-HMO, the log reduction value (LRV) for SARS-CoV-2 was 1.3-1 log10 for moderate risk and 0.96-1 log10 for low risk, whereas for PC-Ag-NP, the LRV was 0.99-1.3 log10 for moderate risk and 0.94-0.98 log10 for low risk. MMMs demonstrated the most robust absorption performance during the sampling period, with the least significant LRV recorded in PC-Ag-NP and PC-HMO at 0.94 log10 and 0.96 log10, respectively.

Department of Chemical Engineering College of Engineering King Khalid University Abha 61411 Saudi Arabia

Department of Chemical Engineering University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran P O Box 48518 78195 Behshahr Iran; Tecnologico de Monterrey Escuela de Ingenieríay Ciencias Puebla Mexico

Department of Civil Engineering Pardis Branch Islamic Azad University Pardis Iran

Department of Computer Engineering Bojnourd Branch Islamic Azad University Bojnourd Iran

Faculty of Civil Engineering Architecture and Urban Planning University of Eyvanekey Iran

Faculty of Civil Engineering Institute of Technology Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University Barabanki 225003 UP India

Faculty of Science and Technology School of Applied Physics University Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 Bangi Selangor Malaysia; International Research Centre of Nanotechnology for Himalayan Sustainability Shoolini University Solan 173212 Himachal Pradesh India; Department of Chemical Engineering School of Mining Metallurgy and Chemical Engineering University of Johannesburg P O Box 17011 Doornfontein 2028 South Africa

Mechanical Engineering Department Government Engineering College Patan Gujarat India

School of Chemical Engineering Zhengzhou University Zhengzhou 450001 China

Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory SPIL NETME Centre Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Brno University of Technology VUT Brno Technická 2896 2 616 00 Brno Czech Republic

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