A plant-wide energy model for wastewater treatment plants: application to anaerobic membrane bioreactor technology

Abstract

The aim of this study is to propose a detailed and comprehensive plant-wide model for assessing the energy demand of different wastewater treatment systems (beyond the traditional activated sludge) in both steady- and unsteady-state conditions. The proposed model makes it possible to calculate power and heat requirements (W and Q, respectively), and to recover both power and heat from methane and hydrogen capture. In order to account for the effect of biological processes on heat requirements, the model has been coupled to the extended version of the BNRM2 plant-wide mathematical model, which is implemented in DESSAS simulation software. Two case studies have been evaluated to assess the model's performance: (1) modelling the energy demand of two urban wastewater treatment plants based on conventional activated sludge and submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) technologies in steady-state conditions and (2) modelling the dynamics of reactor temperature and heat requirements in an AnMBR plant in unsteady-state conditions. The results indicate that the proposed model can be used to assess the energy performance of different wastewater treatment processes and would thus be useful, for example, WWTP design or upgrading or the development of new control strategies for energy savings.

Performance of a membrane-coupled high-rate algal pond for urban wastewater treatment at demonstration scale

“…The energy consumption of the M-HRAP unit was assumed to be mainly related to blowers (air sparging), pumps (culture media and permeate), and paddlewheel. The power requirements for pumps and blower were calculated as (Pretel et al, 2016). On the other hand, an energy demand of 0.4 W/m 2 was set for the paddlewheel.…”

A Semi-Industrial Anmbr Plant for Urban Wastewater Treatment at Ambient Temperature: Analysis of the Filtration Process, Energy Balance and Quantification of GHG Emissions

“…Over-dimensioned equipment in the prototype plant prevented the direct measurement of electrical power consumption from being representative of the energy requirements of AnMBR technology. The power required by the equipment (pumps and blowers) was therefore calculated theoretically using the equations proposed by Judd and Judd [17] and Pretel et al [26]. Adiabatic indexes, and blower and pump efficiencies were estimated based on standard values for these components.…”

“…Increasing energy recovery would also help to widen the applicability of AnMBR technology, for example co-digestion of wastewater with other substrates (organic fraction of food waste, food industry wastewater, etc.) has been successfully explored [26]. Biogas upgrading is another strategy that takes advantage of methane; this option has recently received great attention in the UE (e.g.…”

Widening the applicability of AnMBR for urban wastewater treatment through PDMS membranes for dissolved methane capture: Effect of temperature and hydrodynamics

“…The AnMBR energy demand was theoretically calculated according to Pretel et al (2016) using data from the AnMBR prototype-plant: equipment, flows, biogas production, operating temperature, etc. AnMBR GHG emissions were calculated considering both energy savings and dissolved methane lost into the effluent.…”