Glocal assessment of integrated wastewater treatment and recovery concepts using partial nitritation/Anammox and microalgae for environmental impacts

Rungnapha Khiewwijit, Huub Rijnaarts, Hardy Temmink, Karel J. Keesman*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study explored the feasibility and estimated the environmental impacts of two novel wastewater treatment configurations. Both include combined bioflocculation and anaerobic digestion but apply different nutrient removal technologies, i.e. partial nitritation/Anammox or microalgae treatment. The feasibility of such configurations was investigated for 16 locations worldwide with respect to environmental impacts, such as net energy yield, nutrient recovery and effluent quality, CO2 emission, and area requirements. The results quantitatively support the applicability of partial nitritation/Anammox in tropical regions and some locations in temperate regions, whereas microalgae treatment is only applicable the whole year round in tropical regions that are close to the equator line. Microalgae treatment has an advantage over the configuration with partial nitritation/Anammox with respect to aeration energy and nutrient recovery, but not with area requirements. Differential sensitivity analysis points out the dominant influence of microalgal biomass yield and wastewater nutrient concentrations on area requirements and effluent quality. This study provides initial selection criteria for worldwide feasibility and corresponding environmental impacts of these novel municipal wastewater treatment plant configurations.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)74-84
JournalScience of the Total Environment
Volume628-629
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2018

Keywords

  • Effluent quality
  • Energy recovery
  • Microalgae reactor
  • Nutrient recovery
  • Wastewater management
  • Wastewater treatment

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