Tourism is the sector with the greatest contribution to the economy. Black Sea coastal tourism is central to the expectations for economic growth, and it is directly dependent on the cleanliness of seawater. A team from Sofia University working within the Clean&Circle Center of Competence has developed and proposed the implementation of innovative hybrid treatment modules at the Ravda wastewater treatment plant, which processes the wastewater of the Sunny Beach resort complex.

These modules include cold plasma treatment of the incoming wastewater during the peak tourist season, as well as a plasma-based disinfection module for the treated water, aimed at eliminating pathogenic bacteria and removing residual amounts of toxic pollutants before the water is discharged into the Black Sea.

This approach addresses three critical challenges in wastewater treatment technology:

• enhancing the efficiency of the treatment process during the period of highest load and pollution levels;
• eliminating pathogenic microorganisms in the treated water;
• removing residual amounts of hard-to-degrade contaminants such as microplastics, antibiotics, steroid hormones, PFAS, and other pollutants.

All of this contributes to the long-term protection of bathing water quality and the marine ecosystems of the Black Sea. The development is the result of a multidisciplinary team of biotechnologists, chemists, and plasma technology specialists, and forms the core of the PhD thesis of doctoral researcher Magdalena Bogdanova. The results were presented at the international conference “Kliment’s Days,” and further details will be available in the scientific article currently under peer review.

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