Eco-efficiency analysis of non-potable water systems in domestic buildings

Energy efficiency in water systems contributes significantly towards achieving sustainable water management. Decentralized anaerobic fluidized bed membrane bioreactor (AFMBR) systems with energy recovery have been proposed for greywater recycling in domestic buildings for non-potable uses, such as toilet flushing. This study developed an eco-efficiency analysis (EEA) framework with the integration of life-cycle assessment (LCA) and economic analysis for the evaluation of different water systems. Four water management scenarios including (1) freshwater flushing system, (2) seawater flushing system, (3) greywater flushing system adopting aerobic membrane bioreactor (MBR), and (4) greywater flushing system adopting AFMBR, were analyzed in a case study in Hong Kong. The EEA results reveal the AFMBR greywater reuse scenario to be the most eco-efficient option as the system is capable of energy recovery, recycling of water resource and reduction of sewage treatment loadings. This study has demonstrated that the EEA framework is an effective tool to guide water management towards sustainability and provides a basis for further research on the application of greywater recycling systems on a larger scale.

[1]  Zhixin Yu,et al.  Life-cycle assessment of energy consumption and environmental impact of an integrated food waste-based biogas plant , 2015 .

[2]  G. Silvestre,et al.  Significance of anaerobic digestion as a source of clean energy in wastewater treatment plants , 2015 .

[3]  Bruce E. Logan,et al.  A Two-Stage Microbial Fuel Cell and Anaerobic Fluidized Bed Membrane Bioreactor (MFC-AFMBR) System for Effective Domestic Wastewater Treatment , 2014, Environmental science & technology.

[4]  David Butler,et al.  Water demand management , 2006 .

[5]  Jerald L Schnoor,et al.  Water-energy nexus. , 2011, Environmental science & technology.

[6]  Odeh Al-Jayyousi,et al.  Greywater reuse: towards sustainable water management , 2003 .

[7]  Matthew Franchetti,et al.  Economic and environmental analysis of four different configurations of anaerobic digestion for food waste to energy conversion using LCA for: a food service provider case study. , 2013, Journal of environmental management.

[8]  Patrick Rousseaux,et al.  An LCA of alternative wastewater sludge treatment scenarios , 2002 .

[9]  L. Anadón,et al.  THE WATER-ENERGY NEXUS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA , 2011 .

[10]  Callie W. Babbitt,et al.  Life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of a novel process for converting food waste to ethanol and co-products , 2014 .

[11]  Ahmed Makki Al-Sulaiman,et al.  Anaerobic/aerobic treatment of greywater via UASB and MBR for unrestricted reuse. , 2015, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[12]  Ll Corominas,et al.  Life cycle assessment applied to wastewater treatment: state of the art. , 2013, Water research.

[13]  Pradip P. Kalbar,et al.  Assessment of wastewater treatment technologies: life cycle approach , 2013 .

[14]  Stefan Schaltegger,et al.  Eco-efficiency , 2007 .

[15]  Johan Rockström,et al.  Rethinking water management: innovative approaches to contemporary issues. , 2003 .

[16]  Yu Wang,et al.  China energy-water nexus: Assessing the water-saving synergy effects of energy-saving policies during the eleventh Five-year Plan , 2014 .

[17]  S. Schmidheiny.  Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment , 1992 .

[18]  Arpad Horvath,et al.  Economic Input–Output Models for Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment , 1998 .

[19]  Gumersindo Feijoo,et al.  Benchmarking wastewater treatment plants under an eco-efficiency perspective. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[20]  Jeonghwan Kim,et al.  Development and application of a procedure for evaluating the long-term integrity of membranes for the anaerobic fluidized membrane bioreactor (AFMBR). , 2016, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[21]  Frank Schultmann,et al.  Electricity and substitute natural gas generation from the conversion of wastewater treatment plant sludge. , 2014 .

[22]  Eran Friedler,et al.  Economic feasibility of on-site greywater reuse in multi-storey buildings , 2006 .

[23]  Arpad Horvath,et al.  Life-Cycle Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of a Building-Scale Wastewater Treatment and Nonpotable Reuse System. , 2015, Environmental science & technology.

[24]  Michael Wiedemann,et al.  An LCA study on sludge retreatment processes in Japan , 2000 .

[25]  Andreas Kicherer,et al.  Eco-efficiency analysis by basf: the method , 2002 .

[26]  Garrick E Louis,et al.  A decision model for selecting sustainable drinking water supply and greywater reuse systems for developing communities with a case study in Cimahi, Indonesia. , 2011, Journal of environmental management.

[27]  Ahmad Jamrah,et al.  Evaluating greywater reuse potential for sustainable water resources management in Oman , 2008, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[28]  P. Lant,et al.  The diverse environmental burden of city-scale urban water systems. , 2015, Water research.

[29]  Bashir Ahmad,et al.  Energy consumption for water use cycles in different countries: A review , 2016 .

[30]  Simon Judd,et al.  Technologies for domestic wastewater recycling , 2000 .

[31]  Jaeho Bae,et al.  Anaerobic fluidized bed membrane bioreactor for wastewater treatment. , 2011, Environmental science & technology.

[32]  Silvia Fiore,et al.  Evaluation of the energy efficiency of a large wastewater treatment plant in Italy , 2016 .

[33]  H. Iwabu,et al.  Domestic wastewater reuse using a submerged membrane bioreactor , 1996 .

[34]  C H Lo,et al.  The cost of a small membrane bioreactor. , 2015, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[35]  Jan Hofman,et al.  The potential of (waste)water as energy carrier , 2013 .

[36]  M. Yildirim,et al.  Assessing Environmental Impacts of Wastewater Treatment Alternatives for Small-Scale Communities , 2012 .

[37]  Cumali Kinaci,et al.  Comparison of a sMBR with a CASP system for wastewater reclamation and re-use , 2004 .

[38]  D. M. Ghaitidak,et al.  Characteristics and treatment of greywater—a review , 2013, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[39]  Francisco Taveira-Pinto,et al.  Development of an experimental system for greywater reuse , 2012 .

[40]  Jaeho Bae,et al.  Anaerobic treatment of low-strength wastewater: a comparison between single and staged anaerobic fluidized bed membrane bioreactors. , 2014, Bioresource technology.

[41]  Avi Ostfeld,et al.  Multi-objective evolutionary optimization for greywater reuse in municipal sewer systems. , 2013, Water research.

[42]  M Schütze,et al.  Modelling the effects of on-site greywater reuse and low flush toilets on municipal sewer systems. , 2013, Journal of environmental management.

[43]  Henri Moll,et al.  Environmental and energy system analysis of bio-methane production pathways : A comparison between feedstocks and process optimizations , 2015 .

[44]  W. Deursen,et al.  A method to develop sustainable water management strategies for an uncertain future , 2011 .

[45]  C. Matos,et al.  Wastewater and greywater reuse on irrigation in centralized and decentralized systems--an integrated approach on water quality, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. , 2014, The Science of the total environment.

[46]  Eran Friedler,et al.  Comparative LCA of decentralized wastewater treatment alternatives for non-potable urban reuse. , 2016, Journal of environmental management.

[47]  Dawen Gao,et al.  Integrated anaerobic fluidized-bed membrane bioreactor for domestic wastewater treatment , 2014 .

[48]  Thomas P. Curtis,et al.  Determination of the internal chemical energy of wastewater. , 2011, Environmental science & technology.

[49]  Juan M. Lema,et al.  Monitoring and diagnosis of energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants. A state of the art and proposals for improvement , 2016 .

[50]  Davide Tonini,et al.  LCA of biomass-based energy systems: A case study for Denmark , 2012 .

[51]  Sven Lundie,et al.  A hybrid life cycle assessment model for comparison with conventional methodologies in Australia , 2009 .