scholarly journals Potential of the sewage sludge valorization in Scandinavia by co-digestion with other organic wastes: A techno-economic assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 324 ◽  
pp. 129239
Author(s):  
C. Fernando-Foncillas ◽  
C. Varrone
Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3411
Author(s):  
Clara Fernando-Foncillas ◽  
Maria M. Estevez ◽  
Hinrich Uellendahl ◽  
Cristiano Varrone

Wastewater and sewage sludge contain organic matter that can be valorized through conversion into energy and/or green chemicals. Moreover, resource recovery from these wastes has become the new focus of wastewater management, to develop more sustainable processes in a circular economy approach. The aim of this review was to analyze current sewage sludge management systems in Scandinavia with respect to resource recovery, in combination with other organic wastes. As anaerobic digestion (AD) was found to be the common sludge treatment approach in Scandinavia, different available organic municipal and industrial wastes were identified and compared, to evaluate the potential for expanding the resource recovery by anaerobic co-digestion. Additionally, a full-scale case study of co-digestion, as strategy for optimization of the anaerobic digestion treatment, was presented for each country, together with advanced biorefinery approaches to wastewater treatment and resource recovery.


2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 199-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Bolzonella ◽  
L. Innocenti ◽  
F. Cecchi

The paper deals with the performances of the mesophilic anaerobic digestion treatment of sewage sludge from a full scale BNR process without primary settling (nominally 300,000 PE). A relation between the activated sludge observed yields, Yobs, and the anaerobic digester performance was preliminarily found: for values of Yobs of 0.25 kgVSS/kgCOD the anaerobic digester specific gas production showed the best performances (0.22 m3/kgVSfed). This has to be confirmed with wider future studies. It was also shown the level of sludge pre-thickening to be reached for the self-sustaining warming of the digester also in wintertime. According to the energetic balance and to a comparison with an aerobic stabilisation process, it was pointed out as when a co-generation unit for heat and energy production was introduced about 3.4 kWh/PE y of energy were produced in the anaerobic digestion process. On the other hand, 4.3 kWh/PE y were spent if an aerobic stabilisation process was applied. The economic assessment, carried out on the basis of the energy balances, showed that the anaerobic digestion is always economically advantageous if compared to aerobic stabilisation processes, also for small WWTPs. According to the energetic evaluations an environmental balance was assessed, in terms of CO2 emissions. The difference between anaerobic and aerobic processes was about 5.3 kgCO2/PE y in favour of anaerobic processes application.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Parchami ◽  
Steven Wainaina ◽  
Amir Mahboubi ◽  
David I’Ons ◽  
Mohammad J. Taherzadeh

The significant amount of excess sewage sludge (ESS) generated on a daily basis by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is mainly subjected to biogas production, as for other organic waste streams such as food waste slurry (FWS). However, these organic wastes can be further valorized by production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) that have various applications such as the application as an external carbon source for the denitrification stage at a WWTP. In this study, an immersed membrane bioreactor set-up was proposed for the stable production and in situ recovery of clarified VFAs from ESS and FWS. The VFAs yields from ESS and FWS reached 0.38 and 0.34 gVFA/gVSadded, respectively, during a three-month operation period without pH control. The average flux during the stable VFAs production phase with the ESS was 5.53 L/m2/h while 16.18 L/m2/h was attained with FWS. Moreover, minimal flux deterioration was observed even during operation at maximum suspended solids concentration of 32 g/L, implying that the membrane bioreactors could potentially guarantee the required volumetric productivities. In addition, the techno-economic assessment of retrofitting the membrane-assisted VFAs production process in an actual WWTP estimated savings of up to 140 €/h for replacing 300 kg/h of methanol with VFAs.


2004 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Lundin ◽  
M Olofsson ◽  
G.J Pettersson ◽  
H Zetterlund

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