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Eco-LCA of Biological Wastewater Treatments Focused on Energy Recovery

Chapter · January 2020

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-13068-8_87

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 Eco-LCA of Biological Wastewater
Treatments Focused on Energy Recovery
Alexander Meneses-Jácome and Adriana Ruiz-Colorado
Abstract
This work presents a novel methodology for sustainability
assessment of biological wastewater treatment systems
(Bio-WWTs) promoting the energy valorization of their
by-products (e.g. biogas). The methodology combines
analytical identification of principles-criteria of sustain-
ability (PCS), life cycle assessment (LCA) and energy
analysis (EmA) to obtain a set of sustainable development
indicators (SDIs). Synergy among single SDIs is required
to confirm an overall sustainable condition.





Keywords


Agro-industrial wastewater Biogas Eco-LCA
Energy Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Sustainability indicators
1 Introduction
LCA has been used to study environmental compatibility of
domestic WWTs undertaking higher treatment standards
(Ontiveros and Campanella 2013), as well as agro-industrial
WWTs promoting biogas valorization (Papong et al. 2014).
Improved methodologies based on LCA have been also
applied for WWTs implementing both, more stringent dis-
charge standards and resource recovery activities (Wang
et al. 2012). However, LCA is even lacking of the full
A. Meneses-Jácome (&)
A. Ruiz-Colorado
Grupo de Investigación en Bioprocesos y Flujos Reactivos,
Universidad Nacional de Colombia—Sede Medellín, Carrera 80
No. 65-223, Núcleo Robledo, Medellín, Colombia
e-mail: amenesesj@unal.edu.co
A. Ruiz-Colorado
e-mail: aaruiz@unal.edu.co
A. Meneses-Jácome
Programa de Ingeniería Ambiental, Unidades Tecnológicas de
Santander—UTS, Calle de los Estudiantes # 9-82, Ciudadela Real
de Minas, Bucaramanga, Colombia
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
V. Naddeo et al. (eds.), Frontiers in Water-Energy-Nexus—Nature-Based Solutions, Advanced Technologies
and Best Practices for Environmental Sustainability, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13068-8_87
vnaddeo@unisa.it
capacity to quantify impacts due to ancillary sustainability
goals and have limitations to incorporate economic aspects
in its appraisal. “Eco-LCA” is an alternative approach that
combines LCA with eco-economics methods such as EmA
(Raugei et al. 2014; Zhang et al. 2010), offering a promising
route towards a more complete sustainability analysis of
WWTs (Zhang et al. 2014). This work presents a method-
ology for sustainability assessment of agro-industrial
Bio-WWTs, where LCA, EmA and PCS are merged to
obtain SDIs made up of an environmental and an
“eco-economic” term. The latter is related to changes in the
supply of ecosystem services as Bio-WWTs enforce energy
recovery. A “proof of concept” of this methodology is pre-
sented through two case studies in Colombia.
2 Materials and Methods
LCA stage. A consequential LCA approach was applied for
Bio-WWTs taken on the role of waste-to-energy system
(Meneses-Jácome et al. 2015). Thus, Bio-WWTs got a
productive connotation and LCA can be combined with
EmA to appraise ecosystem service changes linked to this
energy function. Study case #1: Anaerobic-EGSB unit
coupled to an activated sludge process (ASP) to treat
poultry-viscera processing effluents. Biogas valorization
(120 m3 day−1) was evaluated for two scenarios: (i) biogas
mixed with natural gas for self generation in a micro-turbine;
(ii) biogas fuelled in an industrial boiler while ASP ran on
national electricity. Study case #2: Former EGSB unit
treating beer industry effluents, time later coupled to an
aerobic-MBBR. Biogas for exclusive industrial use
(1600 m3 day−1). Unit function: 1 m3 of raw biogas.
Inventory: available elsewhere (Meneses-Jácome 2017), it
includes conventional energy sources shifted in the system
borders. Environmental assessment: based on five
mid-point impact categories (Table 1) considered as equally
relevant for bio-energy production (Dressler et al. 2012) and
WWTs (Corominas et al. 2013). This reduced number of
349
 Table 1 Statement of PCS and SDIs for Bio-WWTs focused on energy recovery
350

PCS Environmental impact term (LCA) Eco-economic term (Energy) SDIS

a
Mid-point impact categories Indicators (NEB Indirect impacts Physical flows AVIi NAVIi Ecoefficiency pairs Description
approach) or environmental accounted as
pressure energyc
Descrip. Indicator Method NEBi AEIi
indicators
(Unit)
Use of the Discharge of EP (kg CML2001 NEBEP AEIEP Ecosystem Water masses AVIwd NAVIwd ¼ AVIwd =Emef SDIHY: (AEIEP, NAVIwd) Hydric
environment organic PO4-eq/ services for for liquid resources
as a sink pollutants and UF) dilution of pollutants quality
nutrients in the discharged dilution
effluent pollution in water
Local airborne AP (kg CML2001 NEBAP AEIbATM Ecosystem Air masses for AVIATM NAVIATM ¼ AVIATM =Emef SDIAIR: (AEIATM, Local air
emissions SO2-eq/ services for diluting airborne NAVIATM) quality
UF) dilution of emissions
atmospheric
pollution in local
air
Rel (kg Impact NEBRel Potential to DALVs(d>
PMeq/ 2002+ promote
UF) respiratory
diseases.
Greenhouse GWP100 IPCC100a NEBQWP Changes in the Biologically AVICO2 NAVICO2 ¼ AVICO2 =Emef SDICC : ðAEIGWP ; NAVICO2 Þ Capacity la
gases (kg capacity to productive area control or
emissions CO2-e/ capture CO^. required for reduce
UF) emissions CO2 emissions climate
capture charge

vnaddeo@unisa.it
factors
Sustainable Renewable NRE Impact NEBNRE AEINRE Shifting of Consumption of AVITE NAVITE = AVITE/EMef SDIRES: (AEINRE, NAVITE) Sustainable
use of energy, fossil (MJPE/ 2002+ conventional hydroelectricity use of
renewable and energy and UF) renewable energy resources
nonrenewable mineral sources
resources resources
a
EP eutrophication potential; AP acidification potential; ReI respiratory inorganics; GWP100 global warming potential 100 year.; NRE non-renewable energy; UF unit function
b
AEIATM computes acid emissions and inorganic emissions promoting respiratory diseases
c
Procedures to estimate energy fluxes in (Meneses-Jácome 2017)
d
DALYs, disability-adjusted life years
e
Raw-effluent energy (Emef = 2.54 * 1016 seJ day−1), it includes contributions from chemical potential and from COD, N and P loads (Meneses-Jácome 2017)
A. Meneses-Jácome and A. Ruiz-Colorado
Eco-LCA of Biological Wastewater Treatments Focused … 351

indicators was reached by means of analytical identification NAVI i

of PCS (Grunwald and Rosch 2011). Mid-points were pro- 1

gressively transformed into Net Environmental Benefit

Indicators (NEBs) (Godin et al. 2012) and then into Average
Environmental Influence Indicators (AEIs). IV. Unlikely I. Confirmed
EmA and SDIs. The environmental character embedded condition “additionality”
inside the PCS aims to identify co-benefits, as well as detri-
mental changes in the supply or quality of some ecosystem AEI i
-1 1
services due to the changes in the Bio-WWTs’ life cycle.
Thereby, some environmental pressure indicators can be used
to assess the environmental economic dimension as “sense of II. Weakly
fulfilment” of the PCS. Conveniently, co-benefits and detri- III . Non - additional
non- additional
ments are referred as to “add-value” indicators (AVIs)
making sense with the economic notion of “additionality” -1

(Müller 2009). AVIs, firstly accounted as energy flows, are

afterwards divided by the raw-effluent’s energy flux to obtain
normalized add-value indicators (NAVIs). Table 1 summa-
rizes the relationships among PCS, mid-points, NNEBs,
AEIs and the pressure indicators acting as a bridge in the
NAVIs setting up. Each AEI coupled to an NAVI gives a
single SDI (SDICC, SDIRES, SDIHY, and SDIAIR). Aggre-
gated environmental (AEIP) and eco-economic terms
(NAVIT) were tailored to obtain an overall SDI (SDIAg).
Since AEIs and NAVIs are normalized dimensionless values
ranging from −1 to 1, SDIs were interpreted by representing
them as ordered pairs (AEIi and NAVIi) on an Cartesian
plane (Fig. 1) as follows: Positive values of both terms
confirm a co-benefit or “additionality” (quadrant I); a strong
Fig. 1 Standard plot for SDIs interpretation
non-additional condition results from both terms being neg-
ative scores (quadrant III); a weak non-additional condition
occurs when NAVI is negative, but the AEI is not (quadrant
II); a positive NAVI due to a negative AEI is an unlikely and
ethically unacceptable scenario (quadrant IV).
3 Results and Discussion
Study Case #1: Table 2 summarizes intermediate indicators
serving as a pathway for AEIs. In turn, Table 3 presents
AEIs and NAVIs estimated for different data sets. According

Table 2 Primary LCA results for study case #1

Mid-point impact category Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Null optiona NNEBi;n b
NNEBi,1 NNEBi,2 NNEBi,null
AP (kg SO2-eq/UF) 0.00558 0.00363 0 −1 −0.65062 0
ReI (kg PM2.5-eq/UF) 0.00079 0.00059 0 −1 −0.73994 0
EP (kg PO4-eq/UF) −0.08459 −0.09017 0.11651 0.97302 1 −0.56372
GWP100 (kg CO2-eq/UF) 0.337 0.334 1.828 0.8156 0.8173 −1
NRE (MJ/UF) −3.75 −18.81 0 0.19940 1 0
a
Null option: untreated effluent
b
NNEBi,n: Normalized net environmental benefit indicator assessed for the “i” mid-point impact category at the “n” scenario

Table 3 SDIs for the study case #1

SDIai Environmental termb Eco-economic term
AEIi (i) (ii) (iii) NAVIi (i) (ii) (iii)
SDIHY AEIEP 0.7819 0.0135 0.7819 NAVIwd 5.27E−2 0.0 5.27E−2
SDIAIR AEIATM −0.3476 0.1524 0.1524 NAVIATM −6.69E-5 2.27E−5 2.27E−5
SDICC AEIGWP 0.9087 0.0009 0.0009 NAVICO2 1.07E−2 2.16E−5 2.16E−5
SDIRES AEINRE 0.5 0.4003 0.4003 NAVITE −2.02E−3 −0.81E−3 −0.81E−3
SDIAg AEIcP 0.4608 0.1418 0.3339 NAVIdT 0.0613 −0,0008 0.05196
a
Data sets for SDIs evaluation: (i) scenario 1 versus null option as baseline; (ii) scenario 2 versus scenario 1 as baseline; (iii) scenario 2 versus null
option as baseline, but conserving NEB for the EP category
i,n − NNEBi,b)/2, subindex “b” of baseline
b
AEIi = (NNEB
P
c
AEIP = P (wi * AEIi); weighting factors, wi = 0.25
d
NAVT = NAVj

vnaddeo@unisa.it
352 A. Meneses-Jácome and A. Ruiz-Colorado

to these results, scenario 2 is non-additional as regards high-quality effluent get worse scores in most of SDIs,
scenario 1, since NAVIT is a negative score (−0.0008). because external energy consumption and sludge production
NAVIT can be fairly improved by taking the SDIHY referred are increased. The end disposal site for sludge requires to be
to data set (I), since the end-effluent quality is equal for both changed in order to reduce transportation and offset this
scenarios (1 and 2). Then NAVIT would become a positive trend, as shown by the respective SDIAg (hole-blue rhom-
value (0.05196). Figure 2 shows as the single SDICC mostly bus). The ESGB + MBBR process could claim a better
determines a better NAVIT for scenario 1 (solid black tri- environmental performance if the aggregated AEIP was
angle) as regards scenario 2 (solid red spot). Study Case #2: estimated by using weighting factors giving priority to local
Fig. 3 sums up the most important results for this case. Solid SDIs (solid blue rhombus).
black arrows show how SDIs are shifted as Bio-WWTs is
upgraded from EGSB (triangles) to ESGB + MBBR process
(red spots), indicating that the exclusive pursuits of a 4 Conclusion

A methodology unique that combines LCA, EmA and PCS

NAVI i x 100 has been developed for sustainability assessment of
10,0
Bio-WWTs focused on energy recovery. It introduces a set of
SDIAg,(iii)
SDIAg,(i)
four single SDIs and the notion of “additionality” to elucidate
SDIHY
5,0 overall sustainability conditions. This “proof of concept”
SDICC,(iii)
points out that the additionality depends on synergy among
SDICC,(i)
SDIAIR,(iii) different SDIs and is not only reliant on climate change
0,0 AEIi
-1 -0,75 -0,5 -0,25 0 0,25 0,5 0,75 1
control, so far the most accepted sustainability criterium for
WWTs. Likewise, Bio-WWTs committed with energy
SDIRES,(i)
SDIAIR,(i) SDIRES,(iii) -5,0 recovery activities or improved treatment practices foster a
negative score for the NAVITE. This “emergy cost” is a
single non-additional condition required to improve other
-10,0
SDIs in order to reach overall “additionality”. In the study
Fig. 2 Plot for SDIs interpretation: study case #1 (a, b). a Single (open context, Bio-WWTs would operate with national electricity
triangle) and aggregated (filled traingle) SDIs based on data set (i) from (  67% hydro.) allocating biogas to shift natural gas use.
Table 3. b Single (open circle) and aggregated (filled circle) SDIs based
on data set (iii) from Table 3
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10,0
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