Optimisation of wastewater treatment strategies in eco-industrial parks: Technology, location and transport

Abstract

The expanding population and rapid urbanisation, in particular in the Global South, are leading to global challenges on resource supply stress and rising waste generation. A transformation to resource-circular systems and sustainable recovery of carbon-containing and nutrient-rich waste offers a way to tackle such challenges. Eco-industrial parks have the potential to capture symbioses across individual waste producers, leading to more effective waste-recovery schemes. With whole-system design, economically attractive approaches can be achieved, reducing the environmental impacts while increasing the recovery of high-value resources. In this paper, an optimisation framework is developed to enable such design, allowing for wide ranging treatment options to be considered capturing both technological and financial detail. As well as technology selection, the framework also accounts for spatial aspects, with the design of suitable transport networks playing a key role. A range of scenarios are investigated using the network, highlighting the multi-faceted nature of the problem. The need to incorporate the impact of resource recovery at the design stage is shown to be of particular importance.

A Framework for Sustainable Planning and Decision-Making on Resource Recovery from Wastewater: Showcase for São Paulo Megacity

“…[ [21][22][23][24] The proposed framework is tested in a real case: It is shown to be simple to apply and facilitates the planning process and the choice of the recovery technology. Nutrient and energy recovery scenarios are analyzed in detail.…”

“…Several decision-making parameters can be evaluated to choose the optimum recovery technology such as costs (capital and operational expenditures), recovery rate (%), environmental impacts (heavy metals and organic contaminants), wastewater composition, and market for the recovered product (e.g., phosphate fertilizer) [25]. These parameters should be considered as early as possible, such as at the design stage [23].…”

“…Analyzing the waste stream composition is essential to the selection of suitable resource recovery technologies. Different technologies may have strengths and weaknesses in targeting specific wastewater components [23]. Data for P concentration (Table 4) in secondary streams allow for technology options for recovery to be defined.…”

“…O'Dwyer et al [23] created a framework focusing on the optimization of design schemes of treatment plants and transport networks. In their assessment, environmental impacts and financial costs were considered for each scenario.…”

Multi-period Quadratic Programming Model for Sewon-Bantul Facultative Ponds Optimization

“…Furthermore, some articles in the literature were published on the utilization of wastewater residual, such as, for brick making [23], recycling [24], sludge for biodiesel [25], microbial fuel cells for power generation [26], etc. Conversely, numerous implementations of its optimization were reported in many areas, for example in textile bio-refractory treatment [27], municipal and piggery [28], [29], eco-industrial park [30], cutting oil on twisted tapes [31], brewery [32], sugar beet industry processing [33].…”