IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i22p6056-d447742.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Enhancement of Energy Efficiency in a Wastewater Treatment Plant through Sustainable Biogas Use: Case Study from Poland

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Masłoń

    (Department of Environmental Engineering and Chemistry, Rzeszow University of Technology, Powstańców Warszawy 6, 35-959 Rzeszów, Poland)

  • Joanna Czarnota

    (Department of Environmental Engineering and Chemistry, Rzeszow University of Technology, Powstańców Warszawy 6, 35-959 Rzeszów, Poland)

  • Aleksandra Szaja

    (Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Lublin University of Technology, Nadbystrzycka 40B, 20-618 Lublin, Poland)

  • Joanna Szulżyk-Cieplak

    (Fundamentals of Technology Faculty, Lublin University of Technology, Nadbystrzycka 38, 20-618 Lublin, Poland)

  • Grzegorz Łagód

    (Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Lublin University of Technology, Nadbystrzycka 40B, 20-618 Lublin, Poland)

Abstract

The improvement of energy efficiency ensuring high nutrients removal is a great concern for many wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The energy balance of a WWTP can be improved through the application of highly efficient digestion or its intensification, e.g., through the introduction of the co-substrates with relatively high energy potential to the sewage sludge (SS). In the present study, the overview of the energetic aspect of the Polish WWTPs was presented. The evaluation of energy consumption at individual stages of wastewater treatment along with the possibilities of its increasing was performed. Additionally, the influence of co-digestion process implementation on the energy efficiency of a selected WWTP in Poland was investigated. The evaluation was carried out for a WWTP located in Iława. Both energetic and treatment efficiency were analyzed. The energy balance evaluation of this WWTP was also performed. The obtained results indicated that the WWTP in Iława produced on average 2.54 GWh per year (7.63 GWh of electricity in total) as a result of the co-digestion of sewage sludge with poultry processing waste. A single cubic meter of co-substrates fed to the digesters yielded an average of 25.6 ± 4.3 Nm 3 of biogas (between 18.3 and 32.2 Nm 3 /m 3 ). This enabled covering the energy demand of the plant to a very high degree, ranging from 93.0% to 99.8% (98.2% on average). Importantly, in the presence of the co-substrate, the removal efficiency of organic compounds was enhanced from 64% (mono-digestion) to 69–70%.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Masłoń & Joanna Czarnota & Aleksandra Szaja & Joanna Szulżyk-Cieplak & Grzegorz Łagód, 2020. "The Enhancement of Energy Efficiency in a Wastewater Treatment Plant through Sustainable Biogas Use: Case Study from Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-21, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:22:p:6056-:d:447742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6056/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6056/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shen, Yanwen & Linville, Jessica L. & Urgun-Demirtas, Meltem & Mintz, Marianne M. & Snyder, Seth W., 2015. "An overview of biogas production and utilization at full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the United States: Challenges and opportunities towards energy-neutral WWTPs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 346-362.
    2. Tyagi, Vinay Kumar & Lo, Shang-Lien, 2013. "Sludge: A waste or renewable source for energy and resources recovery?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 708-728.
    3. Longo, Stefano & d’Antoni, Benedetto Mirko & Bongards, Michael & Chaparro, Antonio & Cronrath, Andreas & Fatone, Francesco & Lema, Juan M. & Mauricio-Iglesias, Miguel & Soares, Ana & Hospido, Almudena, 2016. "Monitoring and diagnosis of energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants. A state of the art and proposals for improvement," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1251-1268.
    4. Unknown, 2016. "Energy for Sustainable Development," Conference Proceedings 253270, Guru Arjan Dev Institute of Development Studies (IDSAsr).
    5. Zhen, Guangyin & Lu, Xueqin & Kato, Hiroyuki & Zhao, Youcai & Li, Yu-You, 2017. "Overview of pretreatment strategies for enhancing sewage sludge disintegration and subsequent anaerobic digestion: Current advances, full-scale application and future perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 559-577.
    6. Budych-Gorzna, Magdalena & Smoczynski, Marcin & Oleskowicz-Popiel, Piotr, 2016. "Enhancement of biogas production at the municipal wastewater treatment plant by co-digestion with poultry industry waste," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 387-394.
    7. Gianluca Caposciutti & Andrea Baccioli & Lorenzo Ferrari & Umberto Desideri, 2020. "Biogas from Anaerobic Digestion: Power Generation or Biomethane Production?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, February.
    8. Cano, R. & Pérez-Elvira, S.I. & Fdz-Polanco, F., 2015. "Energy feasibility study of sludge pretreatments: A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 176-185.
    9. Dinko Đurđević & Paolo Blecich & Željko Jurić, 2019. "Energy Recovery from Sewage Sludge: The Case Study of Croatia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, May.
    10. Yiyun Liu & Tao Huang & Xiaofeng Li & Jingjing Huang & Daoping Peng & Claudia Maurer & Martin Kranert, 2020. "Experiments and Modeling for Flexible Biogas Production by Co-Digestion of Food Waste and Sewage Sludge," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-13, February.
    11. Di Capua, Francesco & Spasiano, Danilo & Giordano, Andrea & Adani, Fabrizio & Fratino, Umberto & Pirozzi, Francesco & Esposito, Giovanni, 2020. "High-solid anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge: challenges and opportunities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    12. Koch, Konrad & Helmreich, Brigitte & Drewes, Jörg E., 2015. "Co-digestion of food waste in municipal wastewater treatment plants: Effect of different mixtures on methane yield and hydrolysis rate constant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 250-255.
    13. Anahita Rabii & Saad Aldin & Yaser Dahman & Elsayed Elbeshbishy, 2019. "A Review on Anaerobic Co-Digestion with a Focus on the Microbial Populations and the Effect of Multi-Stage Digester Configuration," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-25, March.
    14. Latifi, Pooria & Karrabi, Mohsen & Danesh, Shahnaz, 2019. "Anaerobic co-digestion of poultry slaughterhouse wastes with sewage sludge in batch-mode bioreactors (effect of inoculum-substrate ratio and total solids)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 288-296.
    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. Odabaş Baş, Gözde & Aydınalp Köksal, Merih, 2022. "Environmental and techno-economic analysis of the integration of biogas and solar power systems into urban wastewater treatment plants," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 579-597.
    2. Robert Herrmann-Heber & Florian Ristau & Ehsan Mohseni & Sebastian Felix Reinecke & Uwe Hampel, 2021. "Experimental Oxygen Mass Transfer Study of Micro-Perforated Diffusers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Ihsan Hamawand, 2023. "Energy Consumption in Water/Wastewater Treatment Industry—Optimisation Potentials," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-3, March.
    4. Magdalena Budych-Gorzna & Beata Szatkowska & Lukasz Jaroszynski & Bjarne Paulsrud & Ewelina Jankowska & Tymoteusz Jaroszynski & Piotr Oleskowicz-Popiel, 2021. "Towards an Energy Self-Sufficient Resource Recovery Facility by Improving Energy and Economic Balance of a Municipal WWTP with Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-17, March.
    5. Adam Masłoń & Joanna Czarnota & Paulina Szczyrba & Aleksandra Szaja & Joanna Szulżyk-Cieplak & Grzegorz Łagód, 2024. "Assessment of Energy Self-Sufficiency of Wastewater Treatment Plants—A Case Study from Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-19, March.
    6. Horia Andrei & Cristian Andrei Badea & Paul Andrei & Filippo Spertino, 2020. "Energetic-Environmental-Economic Feasibility and Impact Assessment of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System in Wastewater Treatment Plant: Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-22, December.
    7. Alvydas Zagorskis & Akvilė Gotovskienė & Vladimir Monin, 2023. "Quality Assessment of Biogas-Producing Macroalgae from Azov Sea and Šventoji River," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-17, October.
    8. Deok-Kyeom Jung & Sung-Min Park, 2023. "Economic Value Estimation of Biogas Utilization in Public Wastewater Treatment Plants of the Republic of Korea," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-13, February.
    9. Ewelina Płuciennik-Koropczuk & Sylwia Myszograj & Mirosław Mąkowski, 2022. "Reducing CO 2 Emissions from Wastewater Treatment Plants by Utilising Renewable Energy Sources—Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-14, November.
    10. Marcin Zieliński & Joanna Kazimierowicz & Marcin Dębowski, 2022. "Advantages and Limitations of Anaerobic Wastewater Treatment—Technological Basics, Development Directions, and Technological Innovations," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-39, December.
    11. Tamás Karches, 2022. "Fine-Tuning the Aeration Control for Energy-Efficient Operation in a Small Sewage Treatment Plant by Applying Biokinetic Modeling," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-13, August.
    12. Janina Piekutin & Monika Puchlik & Michał Haczykowski & Katarzyna Dyczewska, 2021. "The Efficiency of the Biogas Plant Operation Depending on the Substrate Used," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-12, May.
    13. Ioannis Lemonidis & Dimitra C. Banti & Christos A. Tzenos & Sotirios D. Kalamaras & Thomas A. Kotsopoulos & Petros Samaras, 2022. "Energy Valorization of Fine Screenings from a Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-15, November.
    14. Francesco Facchini & Giovanni Mummolo & Micaela Vitti, 2021. "Scenario Analysis for Selecting Sewage Sludge-to-Energy/Matter Recovery Processes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-21, January.
    15. Mariana Ferdeș & Gigel Paraschiv & Mariana Ionescu & Mirela Nicoleta Dincă & Georgiana Moiceanu & Bianca Ștefania Zăbavă, 2023. "Anaerobic Co-Digestion: A Way to Potentiate the Synergistic Effect of Multiple Substrates and Microbial Diversity," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-24, February.
    16. Sylwia Myszograj & Dariusz Bocheński & Mirosław Mąkowski & Ewelina Płuciennik-Koropczuk, 2021. "Biogas, Solar and Geothermal Energy—The Way to a Net-Zero Energy Wastewater Treatment Plant—A Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-15, October.
    17. Aleksandra Szaja & Agnieszka Montusiewicz & Magdalena Lebiocka, 2021. "The Energetic Aspect of Organic Wastes Addition on Sewage Sludge Anaerobic Digestion: A Laboratory Investigation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-12, September.
    18. Michela Gallo & Desara Malluta & Adriana Del Borghi & Erica Gagliano, 2024. "A Critical Review on Methodologies for the Energy Benchmarking of Wastewater Treatment Plants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-18, February.

    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. Macintosh, C. & Astals, S. & Sembera, C. & Ertl, A. & Drewes, J.E. & Jensen, P.D. & Koch, K., 2019. "Successful strategies for increasing energy self-sufficiency at Grüneck wastewater treatment plant in Germany by food waste co-digestion and improved aeration," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 797-808.
    2. Magdalena Budych-Gorzna & Beata Szatkowska & Lukasz Jaroszynski & Bjarne Paulsrud & Ewelina Jankowska & Tymoteusz Jaroszynski & Piotr Oleskowicz-Popiel, 2021. "Towards an Energy Self-Sufficient Resource Recovery Facility by Improving Energy and Economic Balance of a Municipal WWTP with Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-17, March.
    3. Marzena Smol, 2023. "Circular Economy in Wastewater Treatment Plant—Water, Energy and Raw Materials Recovery," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-18, May.
    4. Liu, Huan & Yi, Linlin & Zhang, Qiang & Hu, Hongyun & Lu, Geng & Li, Aijun & Yao, Hong, 2016. "Co-production of clean syngas and ash adsorbent during sewage sludge gasification: Synergistic effect of Fenton peroxidation and CaO conditioning," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1062-1068.
    5. Gu, Yifan & Li, Yue & Li, Xuyao & Luo, Pengzhou & Wang, Hongtao & Robinson, Zoe P. & Wang, Xin & Wu, Jiang & Li, Fengting, 2017. "The feasibility and challenges of energy self-sufficient wastewater treatment plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1463-1475.
    6. Nicola Di Costanzo & Alessandra Cesaro & Francesco Di Capua & Giovanni Esposito, 2021. "Exploiting the Nutrient Potential of Anaerobically Digested Sewage Sludge: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-25, December.
    7. Loganath, Radhakrishnan & Senophiyah-Mary, J., 2020. "Critical review on the necessity of bioelectricity generation from slaughterhouse industry waste and wastewater using different anaerobic digestion reactors," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    8. Budych-Gorzna, Magdalena & Smoczynski, Marcin & Oleskowicz-Popiel, Piotr, 2016. "Enhancement of biogas production at the municipal wastewater treatment plant by co-digestion with poultry industry waste," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 387-394.
    9. Kor-Bicakci, Gokce & Eskicioglu, Cigdem, 2019. "Recent developments on thermal municipal sludge pretreatment technologies for enhanced anaerobic digestion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 423-443.
    10. Mancini, G. & Luciano, A. & Bolzonella, D. & Fatone, F. & Viotti, P. & Fino, D., 2021. "A water-waste-energy nexus approach to bridge the sustainability gap in landfill-based waste management regions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    11. Luz, Fábio Codignole & Cordiner, Stefano & Manni, Alessandro & Mulone, Vincenzo & Rocco, Vittorio, 2017. "Anaerobic digestion of coffee grounds soluble fraction at laboratory scale: Evaluation of the biomethane potential," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 166-175.
    12. Adam Masłoń & Joanna Czarnota & Paulina Szczyrba & Aleksandra Szaja & Joanna Szulżyk-Cieplak & Grzegorz Łagód, 2024. "Assessment of Energy Self-Sufficiency of Wastewater Treatment Plants—A Case Study from Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-19, March.
    13. Yin, Yao & Liu, Ya-Juan & Meng, Shu-Juan & Kiran, Esra Uçkun & Liu, Yu, 2016. "Enzymatic pretreatment of activated sludge, food waste and their mixture for enhanced bioenergy recovery and waste volume reduction via anaerobic digestion," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1131-1137.
    14. Rosa M. Llácer-Iglesias & P. Amparo López-Jiménez & Modesto Pérez-Sánchez, 2021. "Energy Self-Sufficiency Aiming for Sustainable Wastewater Systems: Are All Options Being Explored?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-20, May.
    15. Sakiewicz, P. & Piotrowski, K. & Ober, J. & Karwot, J., 2020. "Innovative artificial neural network approach for integrated biogas – wastewater treatment system modelling: Effect of plant operating parameters on process intensification," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    16. Guven, Huseyin & Ersahin, Mustafa Evren & Dereli, Recep Kaan & Ozgun, Hale & Isik, Isa & Ozturk, Izzet, 2019. "Energy recovery potential of anaerobic digestion of excess sludge from high-rate activated sludge systems co-treating municipal wastewater and food waste," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 1027-1036.
    17. Ruffino, Barbara & Cerutti, Alberto & Campo, Giuseppe & Scibilia, Gerardo & Lorenzi, Eugenio & Zanetti, Mariachiara, 2019. "Improvement of energy recovery from the digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS) through intermediate treatments: The effect of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of the first-stage digestion," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C), pages 191-204.
    18. Hosseini Koupaie, E. & Lin, L. & Bazyar Lakeh, A.A. & Azizi, A. & Dhar, B.R. & Hafez, H. & Elbeshbishy, E., 2021. "Performance evaluation and microbial community analysis of mesophilic and thermophilic sludge fermentation processes coupled with thermal hydrolysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    19. Aravani, Vasiliki P. & Sun, Hangyu & Yang, Ziyi & Liu, Guangqing & Wang, Wen & Anagnostopoulos, George & Syriopoulos, George & Charisiou, Nikolaos D. & Goula, Maria A. & Kornaros, Michael & Papadakis,, 2022. "Agricultural and livestock sector's residues in Greece & China: Comparative qualitative and quantitative characterization for assessing their potential for biogas production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    20. Mattioli, A. & Gatti, G.B. & Mattuzzi, G.P. & Cecchi, F. & Bolzonella, D., 2017. "Co-digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and sludge improves the energy balance of wastewater treatment plants: Rovereto case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 980-988.

    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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:22:p:6056-:d:447742. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.