Micromixers for Wastewater Treatment and Their Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Fuentes, Olga P.; Noguera, Mabel Juliana; Peñaranda, Paula A.; Flores, Sergio L.; Cruz, Juan Carlos Benavidez; Osma, Johann F.

doi:10.5772/intechopen.96822

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…This study addressed an analysis of the operation stage of bionanocompounds, taking several work cycles into account, as proposed in previous works, in order to improve the environmental performance [ 28 ]. According to some studies, the usage of ice nucleation proteins (INPs) is a potential strategy to increase the effectiveness of the freeze-drying process by producing an estimated overall energy savings of 28.5% [ 29 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment of Functionalized Bionanocompounds with Ice Nucleation Protein for Freezing Applications

Fuentes

Osma

2023

Polymers

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The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of functionalized bionanocompounds with ice nucleation protein (INP) as a novel approach for freezing applications in terms of how much energy is used during each step of freezing when water bionanocompound solutions were compared with pure water. According to the results of the manufacturing analysis, water required 28 times less energy than the silica + INA bionanocompound and 14 times less than the magnetite + INA bionanocompound. These findings showed that water used the least energy during the manufacturing process. In order to determine the associated environmental implications, an analysis of the operating stage was also conducted, taking the defrosting time of each bionanocompound during a 4 h work cycle into account. Our results showed that bionanocompounds may substantially reduce the environmental effects by achieving a 91% reduction in the impact after their use during all four work cycles in the operation stage. Additionally, given the energy and raw materials needed in this process, this improvement was more significant than at the manufacturing stage. The results from both stages indicated that, when compared with water, the magnetite + INA bionanocompound and the silica + INA bionanocompound would save an estimated 7% and 47% of total energy, respectively. The study’s findings also demonstrated the great potential for using bionanocompounds in freezing applications to reduce the effects on the environment and human health.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment of Functionalized Bionanocompounds with Ice Nucleation Protein for Freezing Applications

Fuentes

Osma

2023

Polymers

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“…This scaling up approach is called numbering-up, as it increases the number of microfluidic devices, instead of incrementing their individual volumetric capacity. This adds up to the low-cost manufacture technique implemented here that might be favorable to increase the profitability in case of eventually scaling-up the process even further [ 43 , 44 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Acetaminophen Degradation by Laccases Immobilized by Two Different Methods via a Continuous Flow Microreactor Process Scheme

Sotelo

Ornelas‐Soto

et al. 2022

Membranes

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The presence of micropollutants in wastewater is one of the most significant environmental challenges. Particularly, pollutants such as pharmaceutical residues present high stability and resistance to conventional physicochemical and biological degradation processes. Thus, we aimed at immobilizing a laccase enzyme by two different methods: the first one was based on producing alginate-laccase microcapsules through a droplet-based microfluidic system; the second one was based on covalent binding of the laccase molecules on aluminum oxide (Al2O3) pellets. Immobilization efficiencies approached 92.18% and 98.22%, respectively. Laccase immobilized by the two different methods were packed into continuous flow microreactors to evaluate the degradation efficiency of acetaminophen present in artificial wastewater. After cyclic operation, enzyme losses were found to be up to 75 µg/mL and 66 µg/mL per operation cycle, with a maximum acetaminophen removal of 72% and 15% and a retention time of 30 min, for the laccase-alginate microcapsules and laccase-Al2O3 pellets, respectively. The superior catalytic performance of laccase-alginate microcapsules was attributed to their higher porosity, which enhances retention and, consequently, increased the chances for more substrate–enzyme interactions. Finally, phytotoxicity of the treated water was lower than that of the untreated wastewater, especially when using laccase immobilized in alginate microcapsules. Future work will be dedicated to elucidating the routes for scaling-up and optimizing the process to assure profitability.

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“…Real wastewater tests showed a decrease in phenol removal efficiency to about 18%, but using the same amount of bionanocomposites but with 200-fold the volume of the treated wastewater, representing the equivalent of 200 biodegradation operating cycles. Then, it would be worth exploring the idea of expanding the process for newer and more sustainable enzyme-based biodegradation routes enabled by microreactors [ 48 ]. Next steps should focus on exploring strategies for sustained and continuous operation, including recirculation and parallelization processing schemes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Treatment of Wastewater, Phenols and Dyes Using Novel Magnetic Torus Microreactors and Laccase Immobilized on Magnetite Nanoparticles

et al. 2022

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In this work, the design, manufacture, and testing of three different magnetic microreactors based on torus geometries (i.e., one-loop, two-horizontal-loop, and two-vertical-loop) is explored to increase the enzyme-based transformation of dyes by laccase bio-nanocomposites, improve the particle suspension, and promote the interaction of reagents. The laccase enzyme was covalently immobilized on amino-terminated silanized magnetite nanoparticles (laccase-magnetite). The optimal configuration for the torus microreactor and the applied magnetic field was evaluated in silico with the aid of the CFD and particle tracing modules of Comsol Multiphysics®. Eriochrome Black T (EBt) dye was tested as a biotransformation model at three different concentrations, i.e., 5 mg/L, 10 mg/L, and 20 mg/L. Phenol oxidation/removal was evaluated on artificial wastewater and real wastewater. The optimal catalytic performance of the bionanocomposite was achieved in the range of pH 4 to 4.5. A parabolic movement on the particles along the microchannels was induced by the magnetic field, which led to breaking the stability of the laminar flow and improving the mixing processes. Based on the simulation and experiments conducted with the three geometries, the two-vertical-loop microreactor demonstrated a better performance mainly due to larger dead zones and a longer residence time. Additionally, the overall dye removal efficiencies for this microreactor and the laccase-magnetite bionanocomposite were 98.05%, 93.87%, and 92.74% for the three evaluated concentrations. The maximum phenol oxidation with the laccase-magnetite treatment at low concentration for the artificial wastewater was 79.89%, while its phenol removal efficiency for a large volume of real wastewater was 17.86%. Treatments with real wastewater were carried out with a larger volume, equivalent to 200 biotransformation (oxidation) operating cycles of those carried out with dyes or phenol. Taken together, our results indicate that the novel microreactors introduced here have the potential to process wastewaters rich in contaminant dyes in continuous mode with efficiencies that are attractive for a potential large-scale operation. In this regard, future work will focus on finding the requirements for scaling-up the processes and evaluating the involved environmental impact indexes, economic performance, and different device geometries and processing schemes.

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Micromixers for Wastewater Treatment and Their Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Cited by 5 publications

References 38 publications

Life Cycle Assessment of Functionalized Bionanocompounds with Ice Nucleation Protein for Freezing Applications

Life Cycle Assessment of Functionalized Bionanocompounds with Ice Nucleation Protein for Freezing Applications

Comparison of Acetaminophen Degradation by Laccases Immobilized by Two Different Methods via a Continuous Flow Microreactor Process Scheme

Treatment of Wastewater, Phenols and Dyes Using Novel Magnetic Torus Microreactors and Laccase Immobilized on Magnetite Nanoparticles

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