Low complexity wastewater treatment process in developing countries: A LCA approach to evaluate environmental gains

Lopes, Thaís Andrade de Sampaio; Queiroz, Luciano Matos; Torres, Ednildo Andrade; Kiperstok, Asher

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137593

Cited by 51 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Construction phase presents a higher contribution in all the categories except for ME and FE, in which the operation phase was the most important one due to the avoided impact by the reduction of N and P emissions to water, mentioned before. A similar feature was found in the literature related to non-conventional technologies in which the environmental impacts are mainly influenced by the construction phase (Fuchs et al, 2011;DiMuro et al, 2014;Corbella et al, 2017;Lopes et al, 2020). This effect could be reasonably explained by the low energy and material flows associated with operation; indeed, METland R does not require energy or chemical consumption and does not produce sludge since electroactive biofilm is tightly associated with the bed material.…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Assessing METland® Design and Performance Through LCA: Techno-Environmental Study With Multifunctional Unit Perspective

Peñacoba-Antona¹,

Senán-Salinas²,

Aguirre-Sierra³

et al. 2021

Front. Microbiol.

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Conventional wastewater treatment technologies are costly and energy demanding; such issues are especially remarkable when small communities have to clean up their pollutants. In response to these requirements, a new variety of nature-based solution, so-called METland®, has been recently develop by using concepts from Microbial Electrochemical Technologies (MET) to outperform classical constructed wetland regarding wastewater treatment. Thus, the current study evaluates two operation modes (aerobic and aerobic–anoxic) of a full-scale METland®, including a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) conducted under a Net Environmental Balance perspective. Moreover, a combined technical and environmental analysis using a Net Eutrophication Balance (NEuB) focus concluded that the downflow (aerobic) mode achieved the highest removal rates for both organic pollutant and nitrogen, and it was revealed as the most environmentally friendly design. Actually, aerobic configuration outperformed anaero/aero-mixed mode in a fold-range from 9 to 30%. LCA was indeed recalculated under diverse Functional Units (FU) to determine the influence of each FU in the impacts. Furthermore, in comparison with constructed wetland, METland® showed a remarkable increase in wastewater treatment capacity per surface area (0.6 m2/pe) without using external energy. Specifically, these results suggest that aerobic–anoxic configuration could be more environmentally friendly under specific situations where high N removal is required. The removal rates achieved demonstrated a robust adaptation to influent variations, revealing a removal average of 92% of Biology Oxygen Demand (BOD), 90% of Total Suspended Solids (TSS), 40% of total nitrogen (TN), and 30% of total phosphorus (TP). Moreover, regarding the global warming category, the overall impact was 75% lower compared to other conventional treatments like activated sludge. In conclusion, the LCA revealed that METland® appears as ideal solution for rural areas, considering the low energy requirements and high efficiency to remove organic pollutants, nitrogen, and phosphates from urban wastewater.

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Section: Life Cycle Assessment Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Assessing METland® Design and Performance Through LCA: Techno-Environmental Study With Multifunctional Unit Perspective

Peñacoba-Antona¹,

Senán-Salinas²,

Aguirre-Sierra³

et al. 2021

Front. Microbiol.

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“…While the consumption of PE needed to supply water to the buildings was minimal, the treatment phase required much more PE. This result can be explained by the characteristics of a wastewater treatment plant when compared to a potabilization plant since the latter requires less mechanical and chemical processes to attain the objective [40][41][42][43]. In the case of paper, the results showed the opposite trend: the manufacturing stage clearly consumed much more PE than the Once the relevance of the energy requirements due to water and paper, which have not been considered traditionally for energy certification of buildings, further analysis was applied.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Energy Savings in Campus Buildings under a Life Cycle Thinking Approach

et al. 2020

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Recent studies have identified that buildings all over the world are great contributors to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The relationship between the building industry and environmental pollution is continuously discussed. The building industry includes many phases: extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, construction, use, and demolition. Each phase consumes a large amount of energy, and subsequent emissions are released. The life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) is a simplified version of the life cycle assessment (LCA) that focuses only on the evaluation of energy inputs for different phases of the life cycle. Operational energy is the energy required for day-to-day operation processes of buildings, such as heating, cooling and ventilation systems, lighting, as well as appliances. This use phase accounts for the largest portion of energy consumption of the life cycle of conventional buildings. In addition, energy performance certification of buildings is an obligation under current European legislation, which promotes efficient energy use, so it is necessary to ensure that the energy performance of the building is upgraded to meet minimum requirements. For this purpose, this work proposes the consideration of the energy impacts and material resources used in the operation phase of a building to calculate the contribution of these energy impacts as new variables for the energy performance certification. The application of this new approach to the evaluation of university buildings has been selected as a case study. From a methodological point of view, the approach relied on the energy consumption records obtained from energy and materials audit exercises with the aid of LCA databases. Taking into practice the proposed methodology, the primary energy impact and the related emissions were assessed to simplify the decision-making process for the energy certification of buildings. From the results obtained, it was concluded that the consumption of water and other consumable items (paper) are important from energy and environmental perspectives.

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“…A simplified wastewater treatment scheme, including a UASB reactor followed by constructed wetlands, could be a feasible solution for developing countries, due to its simplicity and ease of operations [ 143 ]. To this purpose, a LCA approach was recently proposed to evaluate a Brazilian full-scale WWTP, consisting in a UASB reactor and a successive wetland treatment, including also reactor construction costs: a negative impact of air emissions from UASB reactor on global warming was again highlighted [ 143 ]. Consequently, a careful monitoring and a proper treatment unit of odor emissions from anaerobic reactors is recommended to avoid negative consequences also from a public perception perspective [ 16 ].…”

Section: Critical Aspects and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Technology for Energy Recovery: A Review on State-of-the-Art and Recent Technological Advances

2020

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Up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor belongs to high-rate systems, able to perform anaerobic reaction at reduced hydraulic retention time, if compared to traditional digesters. In this review, the most recent advances in UASB reactor applications are critically summarized and discussed, with outline on the most critical aspects for further possible future developments. Beside traditional anaerobic treatment of soluble and biodegradable substrates, research is actually focusing on the treatment of refractory and slowly degradable matrices, thanks to an improved understanding of microbial community composition and reactor hydrodynamics, together with utilization of powerful modeling tools. Innovative approaches include the use of UASB reactor for nitrogen removal, as well as for hydrogen and volatile fatty acid production. Co-digestion of complementary substrates available in the same territory is being extensively studied to increase biogas yield and provide smooth continuous operations in a circular economy perspective. Particular importance is being given to decentralized treatment, able to provide electricity and heat to local users with possible integration with other renewable energies. Proper pre-treatment application increases biogas yield, while a successive post-treatment is needed to meet required effluent standards, also from a toxicological perspective. An increased full-scale application of UASB technology is desirable to achieve circular economy and sustainability scopes, with efficient biogas exploitation, fulfilling renewable energy targets and green-house gases emission reduction, in particular in tropical countries, where limited reactor heating is required.

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Low complexity wastewater treatment process in developing countries: A LCA approach to evaluate environmental gains

Cited by 51 publications

References 24 publications

Assessing METland® Design and Performance Through LCA: Techno-Environmental Study With Multifunctional Unit Perspective

Assessing METland® Design and Performance Through LCA: Techno-Environmental Study With Multifunctional Unit Perspective

Toward Energy Savings in Campus Buildings under a Life Cycle Thinking Approach

Up-Flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Technology for Energy Recovery: A Review on State-of-the-Art and Recent Technological Advances

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