Improved life cycle modelling of benefits from sewage sludge anaerobic digestion and land application

Heimersson, Sara; Svanström, Magdalena; Cederberg, Christel; Peters, Gregory

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.01.016

Cited by 48 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Andersson 2015). Peer-reviewed articles based on data from these experiments describe the effects on microbial communities and heavy metals in crops (Börjesson et al 2014), trace elements in cereal grain (Hamnér and Kirchmann 2015), metals in SS from wastewater treatment plants (Kirchmann et al 2017) and the results of life cycle analysis (Heimersson et al 2017). Investigations on organic contaminants have also been reported recently (Ö sterås et al 2015;Magnér et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil fertility effects of repeated application of sewage sludge in two 30-year-old field experiments

Börjesson

Kätterer

2018

Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst

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Recirculation of plant nutrients from waste materials back to agriculture is necessary in a sustainable food production system. In this study we investigated the long-term effect of direct land application of sewage sludge (SS) on soil fertility on two Swedish farms, where field experiments were set up in 1981 with three rates of SS (0, 4 and 12 Mg dry matter ha-1 every 4 years) and three rates of mineral fertilisation, in a factorial design with four replicates. At one site, SS application tended to increase crop yield over time but, when plant nutrients were not limiting, the effect was only significant for spring barley. We deduced that improved soil structure was the main driver for this fertility enhancement after SS application, as indicated by lower soil bulk density and higher soil carbon concentration. After 30 years, soil organic carbon stocks to 0.40 m depth differed by up to 17 Mg ha-1 between treatments. According to carbon balance calculations, retention of carbon derived from SS ranged between 18 and 20% for the soil layers analysed at the two sites. Soluble phosphorus (P) increased with sludge application rate, but represented only around 2% of the expected residual P according to P-balance calculations. The fertiliser value of nitrogen was also low, with only 3-8% nitrogen use efficiency. Heavy metals such as copper, zinc and mercury showed moderate accumulation in the soil, but elevated levels of metals were not detected in crops, even at the highest dose of SS. These results show that SS represents a valuable resource for improving soil fertility in terms of soil organic matter and soil structure, but its efficiency for nutrient cycling is very low within the time frame considered in the study.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil fertility effects of repeated application of sewage sludge in two 30-year-old field experiments

Börjesson

Kätterer

2018

Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst

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“…The benefits of sludge application on arable land can be accounted by crediting for the avoided production of mineral N and P fertilizer. The selection of the replacement ratio at which the N and P in sludge replace mineral fertilizer is challenging and it was shown to be important for the overall LCA results (Heimersson et al 2017). Contrary to N, the availability of P in chemical and biological solids is an area of on-going research (Menezes-Blackburn et al 2016), although it is largely accepted that the P in solids containing high levels of aluminium (Al) or iron (Fe) is less available for uptake by plants (Qin et al 2015).…”

Section: Fertilizer Replacementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is SCENA a good approach for side-stream integrated treatment from an environmental and economic point of view?

Longo

Frison

Renzi³

et al. 2017

Water Research

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The environmental and economic benefits and burdens of including the first Short Cut Enhanced Nutrient Abatement (SCENA) into a real municipal wastewater treatment plant were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC). The implications of accomplishing nitrogen (N) removal and phosphorus (P) recovery via nitrite in the side stream were assessed taking into account the actual effluent quality improvement, the changes in the electricity and chemical consumption, NO, CO and CH emissions and the effects of land application of biosolids, among others. In addition, a case-specific estimation of the P availability when sludge is applied to land, therefore replacing conventional fertilizer, was performed. Furthermore, to account for the variability in input parameters, and to address the related uncertainties, Monte Carlo simulation was applied. The analysis revealed that SCENA in the side stream is an economic and environmentally friendly solution compared to the traditional plant layout with no side-stream treatment, thanks to the reduction of energy and chemical use for the removal of N and P, respectively. The uncertainty analysis proved the validity of the LCA results for global warming potential and impact categories related to the consumption of fossil-based electricity and chemicals, while robust conclusions could not be drawn on freshwater eutrophication and toxicity-related impact categories. Furthermore, three optimization scenarios were also evaluated proving that the performance of the WWTP can be further improved by, for instance, substituting gravitational for mechanical thickening of the sludge or changing the operational strategy to the chemically enhanced primary treatment, although this second alternative will increase the operational cost by 5%. Finally, the outcomes show that shifting P removal from chemical precipitation in the main line to biologically enhanced uptake in the side stream is key to reducing chemicals use, thus the operational cost, and increasing the environmental benefit of synthetic fertilizers replacement.

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“…4,5 Therefore, for mechanically dewatered sludge, a deeper dewatering is necessary for the signicant savings for both operation costs and land applications. 6 Deep dewatering of sludge dewatered mechanically includes various methods such as thermal drying, lime conditioning, composting, bio-drying, and electro-dewatering (EDW). Thermal drying is a traditional but efficient method that can provide good control and achieve high dryness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electro-dewatering pretreatment of sludge to improve the bio-drying process

Liu

et al. 2019

RSC Adv.

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Improved life cycle modelling of benefits from sewage sludge anaerobic digestion and land application

Cited by 48 publications

References 24 publications

Soil fertility effects of repeated application of sewage sludge in two 30-year-old field experiments

Soil fertility effects of repeated application of sewage sludge in two 30-year-old field experiments

Is SCENA a good approach for side-stream integrated treatment from an environmental and economic point of view?

Electro-dewatering pretreatment of sludge to improve the bio-drying process

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