Life Cycle Assessment of an intensive sewage treatment plant in Barcelona (Spain) with focus on energy aspects

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 440-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Bravo ◽  
I. Ferrer

Life Cycle Assessment was used to evaluate environmental impacts associated to a full-scale wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Barcelona Metropolitan Area, with a treatment capacity of 2 million population equivalent, focussing on energy aspects and resources consumption. The wastewater line includes conventional pre-treatment, primary settler, activated sludge with nitrogen removal, and tertiary treatment; and the sludge line consists of thickening, anaerobic digestion, cogeneration, dewatering and thermal drying. Real site data were preferably included in the inventory. Environmental impacts of the resulting impact categories were determined by the CLM 2 baseline method. According to the results, the combustion of natural gas in the cogeneration engine is responsible for the main impact on Climate Change and Depletion of Abiotic Resources, while the combustion of biogas in the cogeneration unit accounts for a minor part. The results suggest that the environmental performance of the WWTP would be enhanced by increasing biogas production through improved anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge.

2015 ◽  
Vol 764-765 ◽  
pp. 1154-1158
Author(s):  
Yu Sheng Chang

The sewage comes from buildings is drained into public sewers. The sewage is then treated in a sewage treatment plant to meet the sanitation standards before being discharged to the water cycle in nature. The sewage treatment process consumes energy and produce CO2. In this research, the idea of streamlined life cycle assessment was applied. The CO2 emission of sewage treatment was assessed from direct energy consumption of four major sewage treatment plants in Taiwan. The results show that the unit CO2 emission of sewage treatment calculated from four plants is 0.174 kg-CO2/m3. The CO2 emission at in-plant sewage treatment stage takes more than 95% of total CO2 emission for most plants. The results suggest that CO2 emission of sewage treatment can be calculated from energy consumption at in-plant sewage treatment stage to simplify the calculation. This database will be important reference for water resource research.


1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (12) ◽  
pp. 279-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Güldner ◽  
W. Hegemann ◽  
N. Peschen ◽  
K. Sölter

The integration of the chemical precipitation unit which would inject a lime solution into a series of mechanical-biological processes, including nitrification/denitrification, and the sludge treatment are the subject of this project. The essential target is the large-scale reconstruction of a mechanical-biological sewage treatment plant with insufficient cleaning performance in the new German states and the adjustment of the precipitation stage to the unsteady inflow of sewage. First results indicate that the pre-treatment performance could be improved by ≅ 20% and the discharge of concentrations of COD, BOD, N and P could be reduced and homogenized. In addition, experiments on hydrolysis and acidifiability of the pre-treatment sludge have been carried out on a laboratory level with the object of making sources of carbon readily available for denitrification. In the course of the experiment, inhibition of fatty acid production by calcareous primary sludge could not be detected. The characteristics of the sludge, such as draining and thickening were considerably improved by the adding of lime.


2014 ◽  
Vol 535 ◽  
pp. 346-349
Author(s):  
Mei Wang ◽  
Ming Yang ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
Jian Fen Li

Effect and benefits of a product or service could be analyzed and evaluated by life cycle assessment during the whole life cycle. Urban sewage treatment plants could improve and control urban water pollution escalating, but it also had certain harm to environment. Effect and benefits of urban wastewater treatment plant A and B were analyzed and evaluated, 13 factors were selected, and comprehensive benefits were researched quantificationally using the method of analytic hierarchy process. It found that urban wastewater treatment plant A who applied A/O process had better benefits than urban wastewater treatment plant B who applied BIOLAK process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Peres ◽  
Marina Rebeca Monteiro ◽  
Micheline Lima Ferreira ◽  
Adalberto Freire do Nascimento Junior ◽  
Maria de Los Angeles Perez Fernandez Palh

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 173-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Tanaka ◽  
K. Kamiyama

Effects of a thermochemical pretreatment on the anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS) was investigated by semicontinuously-fed digesters operated at 37¡C. WAS from a return sludge line of a municipal sewage treatment plant was pretreated by autoclaving at 130°C for 5 minutes after adding 0.3g NaOH/g VSS. Solids of WAS were thermochemically solubilized to one half and then 60% or more were in totality solubilized in anaerobic digesters fed with pretreated WAS at 2-8 days of hydraulic retention times (HRT), while only 16-36% were solubilized in digesters fed with raw WAS. The adverse effect of the set temperature (130°C) on the biodegradability of protein was not found. As a result, removal rates of COD in digestion was increased from 38% to 57% at 8 days HRT by the pretreatment. A specific methane production rate in the pretreated process was three times as high as the normal process. The thermochemical pretreatment was found to be very effective to enhance biodegradability as well as solubilization of WAS in anaerobic digestion.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 80-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mansi Tripathi ◽  
S. Singal

The present study was conducted to evaluate the performance of existing sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Lucknow City of India. Currently, two STPs are operating in Lucknow, i.e., UASB reactor and FAB reactor, with total operating capacity of 345MLD and 56MLD, respectively. Since, the wastewater get mix with the domestic effluent while directing towards the STPs, therefore, the concentration of BOD is relatively very low, and hence the amount of biogas production by the UASB reactor is also reduced than its design value. Two approaches, evaluating the treatability performance and Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) have been used to determine the plants efficiencies. All the results have been interpreted graphically. The results of this study conclude that the UASB reactor is better than the FAB, however in terms of LCA the FAB seems to be more reliable. Hydro Nepal; Journal of Water, Energy and Environment Vol. 12, 2013, January Page: 80-86DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v12i0.9039 Uploaded Date : 10/29/2013


2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (9) ◽  
pp. 2292-2300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Cubas do Amaral ◽  
Miguel Mansur Aisse ◽  
Gustavo Rafael Collere Possetti ◽  
Marcelo Real Prado

Abstract Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors used in sewage treatment generate two by-products that can be reused: sludge and biogas. At the present time in Brazil, most of this resulting sludge is disposed of in sanitary landfills, while biogas is commonly burned off in low-efficiency flares. The aim of the present study was to use life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts from four different treatment and final destination scenarios for the main by-products of wastewater treatment plants. The baseline scenario, in which the sludge was sanitized using prolonged alkaline stabilization and, subsequently, directed toward agricultural applications and the biogas destroyed in open burners, had the most impact in the categories of global warming, terrestrial ecotoxicity, and human non-carcinogenic toxicity. The scenario in which heat resulting from biogas combustion is used to dry the sludge showed significant improvements over the baseline scenario in all the evaluated impact categories. The recovery of heat from biogas combustion decreased significantly the environmental impact associated with global warming. The combustion of dried sludge is another alternative to improve the sludge management. Despite the reduction of sludge volume to ash, there are environmental impacts inherent to ozone formation and terrestrial acidification.


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