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 × 100), followed by BAF (1.60 × 100), 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.
Highlights
Municipal wastewater treatment plants utilize specific technologies to reduce or eliminate pollutants in wastewater resulting from human activities and other sources, and play a critical role in reducing water pollution
Improvement measures were subsequently suggested that may overcome existing problems in the wastewater treatment processes based on the results of Emergy Analysis
The novel indicators can be used to comprehensively compare the sustainability of different wastewater treatment systems and processes based on wastewater emergy as a resource input and the emergy output of sludge and ECEW in drainage
Summary
Shuai Shao 1,2,3, *, Hailin Mu 1, *, Fenglin Yang 3 , Yun Zhang 3 and Jinhua Li 3. Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Linggong Road 2, Dalian 116024, Liaoning, China. Received: 17 September 2016; Accepted: 16 December 2016; Published: 24 December 2016
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