Life Cycle Assessment of Community-Based Sewer Mining: Integrated Heat Recovery and Fit-For-Purpose Water Reuse

Ludwig Paul B. Cabling; Yumi Kobayashi; Evan G. R. Davies; Nicholas J. Ashbolt; Yang Liu

doi:10.3390/environments7050036

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Life Cycle Assessment of Community-Based Sewer Mining: Integrated Heat Recovery and Fit-For-Purpose Water Reuse

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Life Cycle Assessment of Community-Based Sewer Mining: Integrated Heat Recovery and Fit-For-Purpose Water Reuse

Ludwig Paul B. Cabling, Yumi Kobayashi, Evan G. R. Davies, Nicholas J. Ashbolt and Yang Liu

Environments (Basel, Switzerland), Vol.7(5), 36

14/05/2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/environments7050036

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Abstract

Environmental Sciences

Environmental Sciences & Ecology

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Science & Technology

life cycle assessment

heat recovery

membrane bioreactor

water reuse

community-based wastewater treatment

Municipal sewage contains significant embedded resources in the form of chemical and thermal energy. Recent developments in sustainable technology have pushed for the integration of resource recovery from household wastewater to achieve net zero energy consumption and carbon-neutral communities. Sewage heat recovery and fit-for-purpose water reuse are options to optimize the resource recovery potential of municipal wastewater. This study presents a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) focused on global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication potential (EUP), and human health carcinogenic potential (HHCP) of an integrated sewage heat recovery and water reuse system for a hypothetical community of 30,000 people. Conventional space and water heating components generally demonstrated the highest GWP contribution between the different system components evaluated. Sewage-heat-recovery-based district heating offered better environmental performance overall. Lower impact contributions were demonstrated by scenarios with a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and chlorination prior to water reuse applications compared to scenarios that use more traditional water and wastewater treatment technologies and discharge. The LCA findings show that integrating MBR wastewater treatment and water reuse into a district heating schema could provide additional environmental savings at a community scale.

Details

Title: Life Cycle Assessment of Community-Based Sewer Mining: Integrated Heat Recovery and Fit-For-Purpose Water Reuse
Creators: Ludwig Paul B. Cabling - University of Alberta
Yumi Kobayashi - University of Alberta
Evan G. R. Davies - University of Alberta
Nicholas J. Ashbolt - University of Alberta
Yang Liu - University of Alberta
Publication Details: Environments (Basel, Switzerland), Vol.7(5), 36
Publisher: Mdpi
Number of pages: 15
Grant note: EPCOR Water Services Canada Research Chair in Future Community Water Services Alberta Innovates Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) EPCOR Drainage Operation WaterWerx
Identifiers: 991013098097902368
Copyright: © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

Life Cycle Assessment of Community-Based Sewer Mining: Integrated Heat Recovery and Fit-For-Purpose Water Reuse

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