IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v110y2019icp132-142.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Customizing anaerobic digestion-coupled processes for energy-positive and sustainable treatment of municipal wastewater

Author

Listed:
  • Huang, Bao-Cheng
  • Li, Wen-Wei
  • Wang, Xu
  • Lu, Yan
  • Yu, Han-Qing

Abstract

Anaerobic digestion (AD) technologies offer exciting opportunities for implementation of sustainable wastewater management, which are currently still an energy-intensive and costly process. However, selecting an appropriate AD process is challenging because the treatment performances vary significantly with the technology type, wastewater properties and environmental conditions and a trade-off between the treatment efficiency and other cost and environmental impacts is usually applied. In this study, a multi-criteria evaluation method which gives a balanced consideration between multiple sustainability dimensions and the practical implementation conditions for a specific treatment process was developed for AD-coupled processes evaluation. Six indicators across three metrics (i.e., environmental, economic, and technical performances) were covered in the method. Two representative AD-coupled processes for municipal wastewater treatment and four countries (United States, United Kingdom, China, and India) were selected for the evaluation. A national-specific evaluation shows that the high-rate activated sludge + sludge anaerobic digestion always outperforms the other processes (presently and in the near future) except for India, where up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket + activated sludge process stands out as the currently optimal option based on the 2015 data. Moreover, it is suggested that implementing AD-coupled nutrient recovery technologies will be economically more feasible for the developed countries than the developing ones, because the latter will still prioritize the economically- and environmentally-beneficial technologies in the near future. This work may help identifying key area of improvement needed for municipal wastewater sectors in different countries and provide guidance for national and global policy-makers to promote customized implementation of AD-coupled processes towards energy-positive and sustainable wastewater treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Bao-Cheng & Li, Wen-Wei & Wang, Xu & Lu, Yan & Yu, Han-Qing, 2019. "Customizing anaerobic digestion-coupled processes for energy-positive and sustainable treatment of municipal wastewater," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 132-142.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:110:y:2019:i:c:p:132-142
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2019.04.064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032119302850
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2019.04.064?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martina Burmann & Madhinee Valeyatheepillay, 2017. "Asylum Recognition Rates in the Top 5 EU Countries," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(02), pages 48-50, August.
    2. World Bank, 2017. "Armenia Country Gender Assessment, 2016," World Bank Publications - Reports 26267, The World Bank Group.
    3. Luo, Gang & Wang, Wen & Angelidaki, Irini, 2014. "A new degassing membrane coupled upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor to achieve in-situ biogas upgrading and recovery of dissolved CH4 from the anaerobic effluent," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 536-542.
    4. He, Li & Du, Peng & Chen, Yizhong & Lu, Hongwei & Cheng, Xi & Chang, Bei & Wang, Zheng, 2017. "Advances in microbial fuel cells for wastewater treatment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 388-403.
    5. World Bank, 2017. "WASH Poor in a Water-Rich Country," World Bank Publications - Reports 27320, The World Bank Group.
    6. Murrant, Daniel & Radcliffe, Jonathan, 2018. "Assessing energy storage technology options using a multi-criteria decision analysis-based framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 788-802.
    7. World Bank, 2017. "World Development Indicators 2017," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26447, December.
    8. Buonocore, Elvira & Franzese, Pier Paolo & Ulgiati, Sergio, 2012. "Assessing the environmental performance and sustainability of bioenergy production in Sweden: A life cycle assessment perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 69-78.
    9. Tauseef, S.M. & Abbasi, Tasneem & Abbasi, S.A., 2013. "Energy recovery from wastewaters with high-rate anaerobic digesters," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 704-741.
    10. David Hall & Tue Anh Nguyen, 2017. "Electricity Liberalisation in Developing Countries," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 17(2), pages 99-115, April.
    11. J. Lelieveld & S. Lechtenböhmer & S. S. Assonov & C. A. M. Brenninkmeijer & C. Dienst & M. Fischedick & T. Hanke, 2005. "Low methane leakage from gas pipelines," Nature, Nature, vol. 434(7035), pages 841-842, April.
    12. Mao, Chunlan & Feng, Yongzhong & Wang, Xiaojiao & Ren, Guangxin, 2015. "Review on research achievements of biogas from anaerobic digestion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 540-555.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ahmadi, Ehsan & Yousefzadeh, Samira & Mokammel, Adel & Miri, Mohammad & Ansari, Mohsen & Arfaeinia, Hossein & Badi, Mojtaba Yegane & Ghaffari, Hamid Reza & Rezaei, Soheila & Mahvi, Amir Hossein, 2020. "Kinetic study and performance evaluation of an integrated two-phase fixed-film baffled bioreactor for bioenergy recovery from wastewater and bio-wasted sludge," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    2. Huang, Bao-Cheng & He, Chuan-Shu & Fan, Nian-Si & Jin, Ren-Cun & Yu, Han-Qing, 2020. "Envisaging wastewater-to-energy practices for sustainable urban water pollution control: Current achievements and future prospects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Yan, Peng & Shi, Hong-Xin & Chen, You-Peng & Gao, Xu & Fang, Fang & Guo, Jin-Song, 2020. "Optimization of recovery and utilization pathway of chemical energy from wastewater pollutants by a net-zero energy wastewater treatment model," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Marvuglia, Antonino & Havinga, Lisanne & Heidrich, Oliver & Fonseca, Jimeno & Gaitani, Niki & Reckien, Diana, 2020. "Advances and challenges in assessing urban sustainability: an advanced bibliometric review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Xiong, Yu-Tong & Zhang, Jing & Chen, You-Peng & Guo, Jin-Song & Fang, Fang & Yan, Peng, 2021. "Geographic distribution of net-zero energy wastewater treatment in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roopnarain, Ashira & Rama, Haripriya & Ndaba, Busiswa & Bello-Akinosho, Maryam & Bamuza-Pemu, Emomotimi & Adeleke, Rasheed, 2021. "Unravelling the anaerobic digestion ‘black box’: Biotechnological approaches for process optimization," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Gunes, Burcu & Stokes, Joseph & Davis, Paul & Connolly, Cathal & Lawler, Jenny, 2019. "Pre-treatments to enhance biogas yield and quality from anaerobic digestion of whiskey distillery and brewery wastes: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Li, Demao & Tang, Ruohao & Yu, Liang & Chen, Limei & Chen, Shulin & Xu, Song & Gao, Feng, 2020. "Effects of increasing organic loading rates on reactor performance and the methanogenic community in a new pilot upflow solid reactor for continuously processing food waste," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 420-429.
    4. Raheem, Abdur & Hassan, Mohammad Yusri & Shakoor, Rabia, 2016. "Bioenergy from anaerobic digestion in Pakistan: Potential, development and prospects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 264-275.
    5. Brausmann, Alexandra & Bretschger, Lucas, 2018. "Economic development on a finite planet with stochastic soil degradation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 1-19.
    6. Johnny Flentø, 2021. "Ending Poverty in All its Forms Everywhere," DERG working paper series 21-13, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Development Economics Research Group (DERG).
    7. Boukraine, Wissem, 2020. "The finance-inequality nexus in the BRICS countries: evidence from an ARDL bound testing approach," MPRA Paper 101976, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Alejandro Moure Abelenda & Kirk T. Semple & George Aggidis & Farid Aiouache, 2022. "Circularity of Bioenergy Residues: Acidification of Anaerobic Digestate Prior to Addition of Wood Ash," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-18, March.
    9. Kym Anderson & Kimie Harada, 2019. "How Much Wine Is Really Produced and Consumed in China, Hong Kong, and Japan?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Kym Anderson (ed.), The International Economics of Wine, chapter 15, pages 379-404, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Amar Naji & Sabrina Guérin Rechdaoui & Elise Jabagi & Carlyne Lacroix & Sam Azimi & Vincent Rocher, 2023. "Pilot-Scale Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Wastewater Sludge with Lignocellulosic Waste: A Study of Performance and Limits," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-13, September.
    11. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    12. Wang, Fang & Zhang, Deli & Shen, Xiuli & Liu, Weidong & Yi, Weiming & Li, Zhihe & Liu, Shanjian, 2019. "Synchronously electricity generation and degradation of biogas slurry using microbial fuel cell," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 158-166.
    13. Njangang, Henri & Nembot Ndeffo, Luc & Noubissi Domguia, Edmond & Fosto Koyeu, Prevost, 2018. "The long-run and short-run effects of foreign direct investment, foreign aid and remittances on economic growth in African countries," MPRA Paper 89747, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Ehigiamusoe, Kizito Uyi & Lean, Hooi Hooi & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "The moderating role of energy consumption in the carbon emissions-income nexus in middle-income countries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    15. Wang, Hui & Zeng, Shufang & Pan, Xiaoli & Liu, Lei & Chen, Yunjie & Tang, Jiawei & Luo, Feng, 2022. "Bioelectrochemically assisting anaerobic digestion enhanced methane production under low-temperature," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 1071-1083.
    16. Arshad, Muhammad & Bano, Ijaz & Khan, Nasrullah & Shahzad, Mirza Imran & Younus, Muhammad & Abbas, Mazhar & Iqbal, Munawar, 2018. "Electricity generation from biogas of poultry waste: An assessment of potential and feasibility in Pakistan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1241-1246.
    17. Théo Benonnier & Katrin Millock & Vis Taraz, 2022. "Long-term migration trends and rising temperatures: the role of irrigation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 307-330, July.
    18. Chakraborty, Adrij, 2017. "Colonial Origins and Comparative Development: Institutions Matter," MPRA Paper 86320, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2018.
    19. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.
    20. Oludele Emmanuel Folarin, 2019. "Financial reforms and industrialisation: evidence from Nigeria," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 21(1), pages 166-189, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:110:y:2019:i:c:p:132-142. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.