Life cycle assessment of nutrient recovery from wastewater – current methodological practices

Conference paper (2019)

Authors

K.L. Lam Sanitary Engineering - CEG
L. Zlatanovic Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS), Sanitary Engineering - CEG
J.P. van der Hoek Waternet, Sanitary Engineering - CEG , Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS)
Research Group
Sanitary Engineering (CEG) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2019 K.L. Lam, L. Zlatanovic, J.P. van der Hoek
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2019

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Civil Engineering & Geosciences

Department

Water Management

Research Group

Sanitary Engineering

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an established methodology to assess the potential environmental impacts of products and processes. We reviewed 49 recent LCA studies (2010-2019) on wastewater nutrient recovery to synthesise some current methodological practices. Their scopes, variations, nutrient recovery accounting, uncertainty and sensitivity management, and future opportunities are discussed. There are many opportunities to improve the current practice such as assessing a broader scope of environmental impacts, improving model and inventory transparency, communicating uncertainties and understanding model sensitivities. While this study focuses on nutrient recovery from wastewater, a lot of the insights are also relevant to other water-related LCA.