Addressing the Challenge of Wastewater Upcycling Through Cavitation–Plasma Synergy: From Pilot to Semi‐Industrial Scale

Pharmaceutical residues, especially non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), are emerging contaminants that hinder sustainable water management and limit wastewater upcycling. In this work, we address the challenge of wastewater upcycling via the scale‐up of a hybrid advanced oxidation process (AOP) that couples hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) and non‐thermal electrical discharge (ED) plasma, and that will enable the in situ generation of ROS. In order to demonstrate process scalability, the hybrid HC/ED plasma system was initially validated at pilot scale (600 L h −1 ) and subsequently up‐scaled to a semi‐industrial reactor (3200 L h −1 ), specifically designed starting from the pilot unit. The effective exploitation of HC/ED plasma synergy led to the process achieving the quantitative degradation of model pollutants, specifically ibuprofen and diclofenac (10 mg/L), in competitive times (13 passes) and without detectable byproducts, thereby validating the process’ robustness and successful scale‐up. Although current wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) recover nutrients from sludge, biologically treated effluents still contain pharmaceutical residues. This work therefore, potentially solves this issue by providing a sustainable strategy for complete wastewater upcycling in WWTPs, delivering safe regenerated water for agricultural and irrigation reuse, while closing the water cycle.