IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i22p7610-d678969.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modern Use of Water Produced by Purification of Municipal Wastewater: A Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • Giorgia Tomassi

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Via Gradenigo 6/a, 35131 Padova, Italy)

  • Pietro Romano

    (Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and of Economics, Campus of Roio, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy)

  • Gabriele Di Giacomo

    (Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and of Economics, Campus of Roio, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy)

Abstract

All the urban areas of developed countries have hydric distribution grids and sewage systems for collecting municipal wastewater to treatment plants. In this way, the municipal wastewater is purified from human excreta and other minor contaminants while producing excess sludges and purified water. In arid and semi-arid areas of the world, the purified water can be used, before discharging, to enhance the energy efficiency of seawater desalination and solve the problems of marine pollution created by desalination plants. Over the past half-century, seawater desalination has gradually met demand in urbanized, oil-rich, arid areas. At the same time, technological evolution has made it possible to significantly increase the energy efficiency of the plants and reduce the unit cost of the produced water. However, for some years, these trends have flattened out. The purified water passes through the hybridized desalination plant and produces renewable osmotic energy before the final discharge in the sea to restart the descent behaviour. Current technological development of reverse osmosis (RO), pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) and very efficient energy recovery devices (ERDs) allows this. Furthermore, it is reasonable to predict that, in the short-medium term, a new generation of membranes specifically designed for improving the performance of the pressure retarded osmosis will be available. In such circumstances, the presently estimated 13-20% decrease of the specific energy consumption will improve up to more than 30%. With the hybrid plant, the salinity of the final discharged brine is like that of seawater, while the adverse effect of GHG emission will be significantly mitigated.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorgia Tomassi & Pietro Romano & Gabriele Di Giacomo, 2021. "Modern Use of Water Produced by Purification of Municipal Wastewater: A Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-13, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:22:p:7610-:d:678969
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/22/7610/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/22/7610/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Altaee, Ali & Millar, Graeme J. & Zaragoza, Guillermo, 2016. "Integration and optimization of pressure retarded osmosis with reverse osmosis for power generation and high efficiency desalination," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 110-118.
    2. Kim, Jungbin & Park, Kiho & Yang, Dae Ryook & Hong, Seungkwan, 2019. "A comprehensive review of energy consumption of seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    3. Aragón-Briceño, C.I. & Grasham, O. & Ross, A.B. & Dupont, V. & Camargo-Valero, M.A., 2020. "Hydrothermal carbonization of sewage digestate at wastewater treatment works: Influence of solid loading on characteristics of hydrochar, process water and plant energetics," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 959-973.
    4. Prante, Jeri L. & Ruskowitz, Jeffrey A. & Childress, Amy E. & Achilli, Andrea, 2014. "RO-PRO desalination: An integrated low-energy approach to seawater desalination," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 104-114.
    5. Tawalbeh, Muhammad & Al-Othman, Amani & Abdelwahab, Noun & Alami, Abdul Hai & Olabi, Abdul Ghani, 2021. "Recent developments in pressure retarded osmosis for desalination and power generation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Bargiacchi, Eleonora & Orciuolo, Francesco & Ferrari, Lorenzo & Desideri, Umberto, 2020. "Use of Pressure-Retarded-Osmosis to reduce Reverse Osmosis energy consumption by exploiting hypersaline flows," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    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. Gabriele Di Giacomo, 2021. "Material and Energy Recovery from the Final Disposal of Organic Waste," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-2, December.
    2. Shuihua Zheng & Chaojie Yang & Chaoshou Yan & Min Chai & Zenan Sun, 2022. "Study on Fiber Clogging Mechanism in Sewage Pump Based on CFD–DEM Simulation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-19, 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. Soleimanzade, Mohammad Amin & Kumar, Amit & Sadrzadeh, Mohtada, 2022. "Novel data-driven energy management of a hybrid photovoltaic-reverse osmosis desalination system using deep reinforcement learning," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).
    2. Altaee, Ali & Palenzuela, Patricia & Zaragoza, Guillermo & AlAnezi, Adnan Alhathal, 2017. "Single and dual stage closed-loop pressure retarded osmosis for power generation: Feasibility and performance," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 328-345.
    3. Soleimanzade, Mohammad Amin & Sadrzadeh, Mohtada, 2021. "Deep learning-based energy management of a hybrid photovoltaic-reverse osmosis-pressure retarded osmosis system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    4. Bargiacchi, Eleonora & Orciuolo, Francesco & Ferrari, Lorenzo & Desideri, Umberto, 2020. "Use of Pressure-Retarded-Osmosis to reduce Reverse Osmosis energy consumption by exploiting hypersaline flows," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    5. Touati, Khaled & Tadeo, Fernando & Elfil, Hamza, 2017. "Osmotic energy recovery from Reverse Osmosis using two-stage Pressure Retarded Osmosis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 213-224.
    6. Altaee, Ali & Zaragoza, Guillermo & Drioli, Enrico & Zhou, John, 2017. "Evaluation the potential and energy efficiency of dual stage pressure retarded osmosis process," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 359-369.
    7. Kim, Jungbin & Park, Kiho & Yang, Dae Ryook & Hong, Seungkwan, 2019. "A comprehensive review of energy consumption of seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    8. Yin, Fanglong & Lu, Wang & Ji, Hui & Nie, Songlin & Ma, Zhonghai & Yan, Xiaopeng, 2024. "Multi-objective optimization and energy efficiency improvement for rotor duct in integrated energy recovery-pressure boost device," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    9. Altaee, Ali & Zhou, John & Alhathal Alanezi, Adnan & Zaragoza, Guillermo, 2017. "Pressure retarded osmosis process for power generation: Feasibility, energy balance and controlling parameters," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 303-311.
    10. Wan, Chun Feng & Chung, Tai-Shung, 2016. "Energy recovery by pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) in SWRO–PRO integrated processes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 687-698.
    11. Xu, Jiacheng & Liang, Yingzong & Luo, Xianglong & Chen, Jianyong & Yang, Zhi & Chen, Ying, 2023. "Towards cost-effective osmotic power harnessing: Mass exchanger network synthesis for multi-stream pressure-retarded osmosis systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 330(PA).
    12. Aragón-Briceño, C.I. & Pozarlik, A.K. & Bramer, E.A. & Niedzwiecki, Lukasz & Pawlak-Kruczek, H. & Brem, G., 2021. "Hydrothermal carbonization of wet biomass from nitrogen and phosphorus approach: A review," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 401-415.
    13. Vishwajeet & Halina Pawlak-Kruczek & Marcin Baranowski & Michał Czerep & Artur Chorążyczewski & Krystian Krochmalny & Michał Ostrycharczyk & Paweł Ziółkowski & Paweł Madejski & Tadeusz Mączka & Amit A, 2022. "Entrained Flow Plasma Gasification of Sewage Sludge–Proof-of-Concept and Fate of Inorganics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-14, March.
    14. Hipólito-Valencia, Brígido J. & Mosqueda-Jiménez, Francisco Waldemar & Barajas-Fernández, Juan & Ponce-Ortega, José M., 2021. "Incorporating a seawater desalination scheme in the optimal water use in agricultural activities," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    15. Sung Ho Chae & Young Mi Kim & Hosik Park & Jangwon Seo & Seung Ji Lim & Joon Ha Kim, 2019. "Modeling and Simulation Studies Analyzing the Pressure-Retarded Osmosis (PRO) and PRO-Hybridized Processes," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-38, January.
    16. Halina Pawlak-Kruczek & Agnieszka Urbanowska & Lukasz Niedzwiecki & Michał Czerep & Marcin Baranowski & Christian Aragon-Briceño & Małgorzata Kabsch-Korbutowicz & Amit Arora & Przemysław Seruga & Mate, 2023. "Hydrothermal Carbonisation as Treatment for Effective Moisture Removal from Digestate—Mechanical Dewatering, Flashing-Off, and Condensates’ Processing," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-9, July.
    17. George Kyriakarakos & George Papadakis & Christos A. Karavitis, 2022. "Renewable Energy Desalination for Island Communities: Status and Future Prospects in Greece," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-23, July.
    18. Moosazadeh, Mohammad & Tariq, Shahzeb & Safder, Usman & Yoo, ChangKyoo, 2023. "Techno-economic feasibility and environmental impact evaluation of a hybrid solar thermal membrane-based power desalination system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PA).
    19. Manzoor, Husnain & Selam, Muaz A. & Abdur Rahman, Fahim Bin & Adham, Samer & Castier, Marcelo & Abdel-Wahab, Ahmed, 2020. "A tool for assessing the scalability of pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) membranes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 987-999.
    20. Foroogh Nazari Chamaki & Glenn P. Jenkins & Majid Hashemipour, 2023. "Financial, Economic, and Environmental Analyses of Upgrading Reverse Osmosis Plant Fed with Treated Wastewater," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-23, April.

    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:14:y:2021:i:22:p:7610-:d:678969. 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.