A mathematical approach for the synthesis of a wastewater treatment plant using the concept of circular economy

Abstract

Abstract Huge generation of waste from industrial manufacturing processes has become a concern to many countries especially in the world with finite resources. Among these wastes, wastewater generation is one of the biggest issues faced by most industrial processes as the treatment of these wastewaters requires different treatment stages. Consequently, improper treatment and direct discharge of wastewater often occurs which had contaminated the world’s waterways. Therefore, stricter environmental discharge regulations had been enforced by local government authorities. This becomes a challenge for new manufacturing plants in designing their wastewater treatment process to comply with the government regulations set while reducing environmental impacts. This paper presents the preliminary evaluation of a model-based decision making on wastewater treatment technologies selection based on the concept of circular economy. To prolong the natural water cycle, treated wastewater were recycled back to the manufacturing process which reduces freshwater consumption. A case study on semiconductor manufacturing process and its wastewater treatment plant is solved in this work. Based on the results, the synthesis of the wastewater treatment plant incorporating circular economy has obtained 55.83% circular economy efficiency of water being recycled back to the semiconductor manufacturing process.