Emergy analysis of municipal wastewater treatment and generation of electricity by digestion of sewage sludge

Björklund, Johanna; Geber, Ulrika; Rydberg, Törbjorn

doi:10.1016/s0921-3449(00)00091-4

Cited by 117 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…This is why when the urbanization of the modern community creates large population centers that generate concentrated wastewater, a large expenditure on wastewater treatment has to be invested to make a modern city function without human and environmental health problems. Society relies on systems with technological energies rather than on systems with natural energies resulting in "systems being energy intensive rather than land-intensive" [155]. There is a reciprocity between the amount of resources used in the concentration of nutrients (the food support system) and the resources that have to be spent on dispersion (the WWTP system) [149,155,156].…”

Section: System-based Tool: Emergy Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Society relies on systems with technological energies rather than on systems with natural energies resulting in "systems being energy intensive rather than land-intensive" [155]. There is a reciprocity between the amount of resources used in the concentration of nutrients (the food support system) and the resources that have to be spent on dispersion (the WWTP system) [149,155,156]. The resources for treating the wastewater could either be drawn from local resources by the expropriation of large land areas (or less land for longer period time), or by the use of high technologies and large amounts of purchased inputs from other places or other time periods such as importing chemicals and materials from outside systems, or utilizing the higher emergy quality products like electricity driven by fossil fuels concentrated through prior geological times.…”

Section: System-based Tool: Emergy Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainable Water Systems for the City of Tomorrow—A Conceptual Framework

Xue

González-Mejía

et al. 2015

Sustainability

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Urban water systems are an example of complex, dynamic human-environment coupled systems which exhibit emergent behaviors that transcend individual scientific disciplines. While previous siloed approaches to water services (i.e., water resources, drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater) have led to great improvements in public health protection, sustainable solutions for a growing global population facing increased resource constraints demand a paradigm shift based on holistic management to maximize the use and recovery of water, energy, nutrients, and materials. The objective of this review paper is to highlight the issues in traditional water systems including water demand and use, centralized configuration, sewer collection systems, characteristics of mixed wastewater, and to explore alternative solutions such as decentralized water systems, fit for purpose and water reuse, OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 12072 natural/green infrastructure, vacuum sewer collection systems, and nutrient/energy recovery. This review also emphasizes a system thinking approach for evaluating alternatives that should include sustainability indicators and metrics such as emergy to assess global system efficiency. An example paradigm shift design for urban water system is presented, not as the recommended solution for all environments, but to emphasize the framework of system-level analysis and the need to visualize water services as an organic whole. When water systems are designed to maximize the resources and optimum efficiency, they are more prevailing and sustainable than siloed management because a system is more than the sum of its parts.

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Section: System-based Tool: Emergy Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: System-based Tool: Emergy Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Water Systems for the City of Tomorrow—A Conceptual Framework

Xue

González-Mejía

et al. 2015

Sustainability

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“…Fig. 1 shows various strategies of shortening anaerobic digestion step and its utilization of VFAs [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Removal of volatile fatty acids (VFA) by microbial fuel cell with aluminum electrode and microbial community identification with 16S rRNA sequence

Jeong

Choi

Ahn

et al. 2008

Korean J. Chem. Eng.

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Removal of volatile fatty acids in anaerobic digestion of organic wastes can accelerate eventual decomposition of organic wastes to CO 2 and H 2 O using a recovery of electric energy by a microbial fuel cell. The fuel cell anode chamber was a 10 cm (I.D.)×20 cm long cylindrical Plexiglass having an ion ceramic cylinder separator (I.D.10 mm, O.D.12 mm, 0.3 µm average pore size). The aluminum foil cathode (12 cm 2 surface area) was located inside the ceramic cylinder. Between the two cylinders, 1 liter of activated carbon particles was packed as anode electrode having a void fraction of 0.4. This fuel cell was connected to a 5 liter bioreactor (working volume 1.5 liter), and the bioreactor was run in batch mode by re-circulating a synthetic wastewater of 5 g/L glucose. Maximum TVFA (total volatile fatty acids) and SCOD (soluble chemical oxygen demand) removal rate were 3.79 g/L·day, 5.88 g/L·day, respectively. TVFA removal efficiency (92.7%) and SCOD removal efficiency (94.7%) under maximum current density operation were higher than the operation with maximum power density. In acid fermentation, butyric acid concentration was highest because Clostridium butyricum was a dominant microbial communitiy in the inoculum. The microbial cells collected from the anode bio-film samples were affiliated with Bacillus cereus based on the nucleotide sequences of dominant DGGE (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) bands.

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“…Transformities used in this study are as described by H.T. Odum and other emergy researchers [37,42,[49][50][51][52]. Transformities of substances with similar properties were applied in instances where actual transformities values were unknown.…”

Section: Results Of Emergy Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of Emergy Analysis to the Sustainability Evaluation of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants

Shao

Yang

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:Municipal wastewater treatment plants consume much energy and manpower, are expensive to run, and generate sludge and treated wastewater whilst removing pollutants through specific treatment regimes. The sustainable development of the wastewater treatment industry is therefore challenging, and a comprehensive evaluation method is needed for assessing the sustainability of different wastewater treatment processes, for identifying the improvement potential of treatment plants, and for directing policymakers, management measures and development strategies. This study established improved evaluation indicators based on Emergy Analysis that place total wastewater, resources, energy, economic input and emission of pollutants on the same scale compared to the traditional indicators. The sustainability of four wastewater treatment plants and their associated Anaerobic-Anoxic-Oxic (A2O), Constant Waterlevel Sequencing Batch Reactor (CWSBR), Cyclic Activated Sludge Technology (CAST) and Biological Aerated Filter (BAF) treatment processes were assessed in a city in northeast China. Results show that the CWSBR process was the most sustainable wastewater treatment process according to its largest calculated value of Improved Emergy Sustainable Index (2.53 × 10 0 ), followed by BAF (1.60 × 10 0 ), A2O (9.78 × 10 −1 ) and CAST (5.77 × 10 −1 ). Emergy Analysis provided improved indicators that are suitable for comparing different wastewater treatment processes.

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Emergy analysis of municipal wastewater treatment and generation of electricity by digestion of sewage sludge

Cited by 117 publications

References 3 publications

Sustainable Water Systems for the City of Tomorrow—A Conceptual Framework

Sustainable Water Systems for the City of Tomorrow—A Conceptual Framework

Removal of volatile fatty acids (VFA) by microbial fuel cell with aluminum electrode and microbial community identification with 16S rRNA sequence

Application of Emergy Analysis to the Sustainability Evaluation of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants

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