Comprehensive life cycle inventories of alternative wastewater treatment systems

Foley, Jeffrey; Haas, David de; Hartley, Ken; Lant, Paul

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2009.11.031

Cited by 343 publications

(219 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Life cycle assessment has widely been used to assess GHG emissions and other associated environmental impacts for water supply and wastewater treatment options in Australia and elsewhere in the world (Barber 2008;Coday et al 2015;de Haas et al 2009;Foley et al 2007;Foley et al 2010;Hall et al 2011;Raluy et al 2005;Stokes and Horvath 2006;Lane et al 2010;Lundie et al 2004;Racoviceanu et al 2007;Shahabi et al 2015a;Yoshida et al 2013). None of them have calculated the net GHG emissions from all existing and alternative water supply options in Western Australia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the carbon footprint of water treatment with renewable energy: a Western Australian case study

Biswas

Yek

2016

Renewables

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A life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out on three separate drinking water production options-a groundwater treatment plant (GWTP), surface water treatment plant and seawater desalination plant (electrodialysis) in order to calculate the carbon footprint associated with each process and to identify the areas of production with high levels of GHG emissions in order to develop strategies for reducing their carbon footprint. The results obtained from the LCA show that the highest GHG emissions are from the seawater desalination plant via electrodialysis (ED) where the GHG emissions were 2.46 kg CO 2 equivalent (eq). By comparison, the GWTP has the lowest carbon footprint emitting some 0.38 kg CO 2 eq for water delivery to households. The GHG emission contribution of electricity generation for the GWTP, surface water treatment plant and seawater ED plants was 95, 82 and 98 %, respectively. Furthermore, the GHG emissions associated with this production process can be further reduced by including renewable energy power generation in its operations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the carbon footprint of water treatment with renewable energy: a Western Australian case study

Biswas

Yek

2016

Renewables

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“…A multiplicative approach was utilized to account for other miscellaneous WTTP construction materials (reinforcing steel, transportation, wiring, etc.) as outlined by Fahner 80 and Doka 81 and used by Foley and colleagues 82 , excluding those materials and processes that were directly quantified from detailed design (listed above).…”

Section: Life Cycle Inventory (Lci)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of anaerobic membrane bioreactors for the valorization of dilute organic carbon waste streams

Shoener

Zhong

Greiner

et al. 2016

Energy Environ. Sci.

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“…As previously reported, WWTPs have varied performance at different treatment levels with varying effects on the natural environment (25,26). To this end, the WWTPs (Table S2) considered under the improved and conventional approaches were each hypothesized to treat municipal wastewater to several different sets of effluent standards for comparative investigation of the potential environmental impacts and benefits of the resource recovery approach for WWTPs.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To this end, the WWTPs (Table S2) considered under the improved and conventional approaches were each hypothesized to treat municipal wastewater to several different sets of effluent standards for comparative investigation of the potential environmental impacts and benefits of the resource recovery approach for WWTPs. Three increasingly stringent discharge limits from Chinese discharge regulations (class 2, class 1B, and class 1A) (27) were selected as representative of developing countries; in addition, a set of more stringent effluent limits representative of developed countries was also included according to a previous literature (26). Briefly, class 2 limits effluent chemical oxygen demand (COD) to <100 mg/L, NH 3 -N to <25 mg N/L, and total phosphorus (TP) to <3 mg P/L, but no limit is imposed on total nitrogen (TN); this is referred to as scenario 1.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic evaluation of integrating resource recovery into wastewater treatment to improve environmental sustainability

Wang

McCarty

Liu

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Global expectations for wastewater service infrastructure have evolved over time, and the standard treatment methods used by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are facing issues related to problem shifting due to the current emphasis on sustainability. A transition in WWTPs toward reuse of wastewater-derived resources is recognized as a promising solution for overcoming these obstacles. However, it remains uncertain whether this approach can reduce the environmental footprint of WWTPs. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a net environmental benefit calculation for several scenarios for more than 50 individual countries over a 20-y time frame. For developed countries, the resource recovery approach resulted in ∼154% net increase in the environmental performance of WWTPs compared with the traditional substance elimination approach, whereas this value decreased to ∼60% for developing countries. Subsequently, we conducted a probabilistic analysis integrating these estimates with national values and determined that, if this transition was attempted for WWTPs in developed countries, it would have a ∼65% probability of attaining net environmental benefits. However, this estimate decreased greatly to ∼10% for developing countries, implying a substantial risk of failure. These results suggest that implementation of this transition for WWTPs should be studied carefully in different temporal and spatial contexts. Developing countries should customize their approach to realizing more sustainable WWTPs, rather than attempting to simply replicate the successful models of developed countries. Results derived from the model forecasting highlight the role of bioenergy generation and reduced use of chemicals in improving the sustainability of WWTPs in developing countries.wastewater treatment | paradigm shift | resource recovery | sustainability assessment | net environmental benefit

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Comprehensive life cycle inventories of alternative wastewater treatment systems

Cited by 343 publications

References 32 publications

Improving the carbon footprint of water treatment with renewable energy: a Western Australian case study

Improving the carbon footprint of water treatment with renewable energy: a Western Australian case study

Design of anaerobic membrane bioreactors for the valorization of dilute organic carbon waste streams

Probabilistic evaluation of integrating resource recovery into wastewater treatment to improve environmental sustainability

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