Net environmental benefit: introducing a new LCA approach on wastewater treatment systems

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (9) ◽  
pp. 1624-1631 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Godin ◽  
C. Bouchard ◽  
P. A. Vanrolleghem
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Environmental Benefit ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Wastewater Quality ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Lca Results

Life cycle assessment (LCA) allows evaluating the potential environmental impacts of a product or a service in relation to its function and over its life cycle. In past LCAs applied to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), the system function definition has received little attention despite its great importance. This has led to some limitations in LCA results interpretation. A new methodology to perform LCA on WWTPs is proposed to avoid those limitations. It is based on net environmental benefit (NEB) evaluation and requires assessing the potential impact of releasing wastewater without and with treatment besides assessing the impact of the WWTP's life cycle. The NEB allows showing the environmental trade-offs between avoided impact due to wastewater treatment and induced impact by the WWTP's life cycle. NEB is compared with a standard LCA through the case study of a small municipal WWTP consisting of facultative aerated lagoons. The NEB and standard LCA show similar results for impact categories solely related to the WWTP's life cycle but differ in categories where wastewater treatment environmental benefit is accounted for as NEB considers influent wastewater quality whereas standard LCA does not.

Environmental impact analysis of chemicals and energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants: case study of Oslo, Norway

2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 1018-1031 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Venkatesh ◽  
Helge Brattebø
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Environmental Footprint ◽  
Nitrogen And Phosphorus ◽  
Environmental Impact Analysis ◽  
Treated Effluent ◽  
The Impact ◽  
By Products

Wastewater treatment plants, while performing the important function of treating wastewater to meet the prescribed discharge standards, consume energy and a variety of chemicals. This paper analyses the consumption of energy and chemicals by wastewater treatment plants in Oslo over eight years, and their potential environmental impacts. Global warming and acidification were the dominant impacts for chemicals and energy, respectively. Avoided impacts due to usable by-products – sludge, ammonium nitrate and biogas – play a key role in shrinking the environmental footprint of the wastewater plants. The scope for decreasing this footprint by streamlining energy and chemicals consumption is limited, however, considering that over 70% of the impact is accounted for by the eutrophication potential (thanks to the nitrogen and phosphorus which is discharged to the sink) of the treated effluent wastewater.

scholarly journals Energetic-Environmental-Economic Feasibility and Impact Assessment of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System in Wastewater Treatment Plant: Case Study

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Horia Andrei ◽  
Cristian Andrei Badea ◽  
Paul Andrei ◽  
Filippo Spertino
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plant ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
Economic Feasibility ◽  
Photovoltaic System ◽  
The Impact

Wastewater treatment plants and power generation constitute inseparable parts of present society. So the growth of wastewater treatment plants is accompanied by an increase in the energy consumption, and a sustainable development implies the use of renewable energy sources on a large scale in the power generation. A case study of the synergy between wastewater treatment plants and photovoltaic systems, aiming to improve the energetic, environmental and economic impacts, is presented. Based on data acquisition, the energy consumption analysis of wastewater treatment plant reveals that the highest demand is during April, and the lowest is during November. The placement of photovoltaic modules is designed to maximize the use of free space on the technological area of wastewater treatment plant in order to obtain a power output as high as possible. The peak consumption of wastewater treatment plant occurs in April, however the peak production of the photovoltaic is in July, so electrochemical batteries can partly compensate for this mismatch. The impact of the photovoltaic system connectivity on power grid is assessed by means of the matching-index method and the storage battery significantly improves this parameter. Carbon credit and energy payback time are used to assess the environmental impact. The results prove that the photovoltaic system mitigates 12,118 tons of carbon and, respectively, the embedded energy is compensated by production in 8 ½ years. The economic impact of the photovoltaic system is analyzed by the levelized cost of energy, and the results show that the price of energy from the photovoltaic source is below the current market price of energy.

scholarly journals A comparative life cycle assessment of stretchable and rigid electronics: a case study of cardiac monitoring devices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kokare ◽  
F. M. A. Asif ◽  
G. Mårtensson ◽  
S. Shoaib-ul-Hasan ◽  
A. Rashid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Manufacturing Process ◽  
Cardiac Monitoring ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Stretchable Electronics ◽  
Monitoring Device ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Lca Results

AbstractStretchable electronics is a new innovation and becoming popular in various fields, especially in the healthcare sector. Since stretchable electronics use less printed circuit boards (PCBs), it is expected that the environmental performance of a stretchable electronics-based device is better than a rigid electronics-based device that provides the same functionalities. Yet, such a study is rarely available. Thus, the main purpose of this research is to perform a comparative life cycle analysis of stretchable and rigid electronics-based devices. This research combines both the case study approach and the research review approach. For the case study, a cardiac monitoring device with both stretchable and rigid electronics is used. The ISO 14044:2006 standard's prescribed LCA approach and ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (Hierarchist) are followed for the impact assessment using the SimaPro 9.1 software. The LCA results show that the stretchable cardiac monitoring device has better environmental performance in all eighteen impact categories. This research also shows that the manufacturing process of stretchable electronics has lower environmental impacts than those for rigid electronics. The main reasons for the improved environmental performance of stretchable electronics are lower consumption of raw material as well as decreased energy consumption during manufacturing. Based on the LCA results of a cardiac monitoring device, the study concludes that stretchable electronics and their manufacturing process have better environmental performance in comparison with the rigid electronics and their manufacturing process.

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Case Study of Tehran, Iran

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 1155-1169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massoud Tabesh ◽  
Maryam Feizee Masooleh ◽  
Bardia Roghani ◽  
Seyed Sajed Motevallian
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants

Controlling the Settling of Activated Sludge in Pulp and Paper Wastewater Treatment Plants

1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 223-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Clauss ◽  
Christel Balavoine ◽  
Delphine Hélaine ◽  
Gaëtan Martin
Keyword(s):  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Activated Sludge ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Pulp And Paper ◽  
Organic Load ◽  
Forest Industry ◽  
Filamentous Bulking ◽  
Mineral Particles ◽  
Mineral Powder

Forest industry wastewaters are difficult to clean: hydraulic and organic load variations, filamentous bulking or pin-point flocs negatively impact depollution processes. The addition of a fine, mineral, talc-based powder, Aquatal, into the aeration tanks of wastewater treatment plants connected to pulp and paper factories has been successfully tested since end of '97. The first case-study presents full results obtained over a period of 18 months in a 20,000 p.e. plant connected to a paper factory. The mineral powder was regularly added to control sludge volume index, thereby ensuring low suspended solids concentration in the outfluent. Plant operators could easily adapt biomass concentration to match organic load variation, thereby maintaining pollution micro-organisms ratio constant. In a second case study, a trouble-shooting strategy was implemented to counteract filamentous bulking. A one-off, large dosage enabled the plant operator to deal effectively with poor settleability sludge and rapidly control sludge blanket expansion. In both cases, the main common characteristics observed were an increase in floc aggregation and the production of heavier and well-structured flocs. The sludge settling velocity increased and an efficient solid/liquid separation was obtained. After a few days, the mineral particles of Aquatal were progressively integrated into the sludge floc structure. When the mineral powder was added to the activated sludge in the aeration basin, chemical interactions frequently encountered with other wastewater treatment additives did not pose a problem. Moreover, with this mineral additive, the biological excess sludge displayed good thickening properties and dewatering was improved. Despite the addition of the insoluble mineral particles, the amount of wet sludge expelled did not increase. Aquatal offers a rapid solution to floc settleability problems which so frequently arise when physical or biological disorders appear in forest industry wastewater treatment plants.

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