Library
local_library Home Repository

Life cycle assessment of the mesophilic, thermophilic, and temperature-phased anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge

Journal Article (2020)
Author(s)

Iryna Lanko (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague)

Laura Flores (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya)

Marianna Garfí (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya)

Vladimir Todt (Veolia Ceská Republika, Prague)

J.A. Posada Duque (TU Delft - BT/Biotechnology and Society)

Pavel Jenicek (University of Chemistry and Technology Prague)

Ivet Ferrer (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya)

Research Group
BT/Biotechnology and Society
Copyright
© 2020 Iryna Lanko, Laura Flores, Marianna Garfí, Vladimir Todt, J.A. Posada Duque, Pavel Jenicek, Ivet Ferrer
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.3390/w12113140
More Info
expand_more
Publication Year
2020
Language
English
Copyright
© 2020 Iryna Lanko, Laura Flores, Marianna Garfí, Vladimir Todt, J.A. Posada Duque, Pavel Jenicek, Ivet Ferrer
Research Group
BT/Biotechnology and Society
Issue number
11
Volume number
12
Pages (from-to)
1-20
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.

Abstract

In this study the environmental impact of the anaerobic digestion (AD) of sewage sludge within an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) was investigated. Three alternative AD systems (mesophilic, thermophilic, and temperature-phased anaerobic digestion (TPAD)) were compared to determine which system may have the best environmental performance. Two life cycle assessments (LCA) were performed considering: (i) the whole WWTP (for a functional unit (FU) of 1 m3 of treated wastewater), and (ii) the sludge line (SL) alone (for FU of 1 m3 of produced methane). The data for the LCA were obtained from previous laboratory experimental work in combination with full-scale WWTP and literature. According to the results, the WWTP with TPAD outperforms those with mesophilic and thermophilic AD in most analyzed impact categories (i.e., Human toxicity, Ionizing radiation, Metal and Fossil depletion, Agricultural land occupation, Terrestrial acidification, Freshwater eutrophication, and Ozone depletion), except for Climate change where the WWTP with mesophilic AD performed better than with TPAD by 7%. In the case of the SL alone, the production of heat and electricity (here accounted for as avoided environmental impacts) led to credits in most of the analyzed impact categories except for Human toxicity where credits did not balance out the impacts caused by the wastewater treatment system. The best AD alternative was thermophilic concerning all environmental impact categories, besides Climate change and Human toxicity. Differences between both LCA results may be attributed to the FU.