The objective of this paper is to provide guidance for the design, organization, and execution of treatability studies, drawing on the authors' experiences gained by conducting more than a hundred treatability studies for a wide variety of chemical, biological, and physical treatment technologies, as well as in reviewing numerous studies conducted by other groups. This paper focuses on treatability studies performed in the context of the treatment of wastewater.The following questions are specifically addressed:• What is a treatability study?• What are the different types of treatability studies and when are they used?• When is field pilot testing more appropriate than laboratory treatability testing?• Who should conduct various types of treatability studies and how?• What are the most common experimental/design failings in treatability testing and how can they be avoided?Several treatability test case studies are presented as examples.
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