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Sustainability on Wastewater Treatment and Recycling

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2019) | Viewed by 7585

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Bornse Weilanden 9, 6708WG Wageningen, The Netherlands
Interests: biological metal recovery; nutrient cycling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

State-of-the-art sanitation systems were designed with the main aim to protect humans and the environment from pathogens and pollutants, respectively. Sewers and municipal wastewater treatment plants are generally capable of reaching hygienic and environmental standards; however, these were not designed for recycling of resources from sewage, especially nutrients, organic matter, and water. At present, scientists and policy makers suggest circularity as an added design criterion for systems that convey substances in our society, including sanitation systems. This new criterion implies that after use, water, organic matter, and nutrients from wastewater should remain available for societal reuse on human time-scales. This striving for circularity is driven, amongst others, by the rising awareness that natural nutrient and water resources cannot endlessly be drained from the earth without jeopardizing human existence, regardless of the timing of specific scarcity threats. Furthermore, changed urban conditions and trends call for rethinking wastewater management, as the resources contained in wastewater may contribute to solving the rising water demand, climate change effects, and sustainable nutrient demand in (urban agriculture) and around urban areas. To tackle this circular challenge, interaction and cooperation between all science disciplines along the entire wastewater and nutrient chain is required. Therefore, this Special Issue calls for manuscript submissions which evaluate technological, systemic, economic, and social aspects of novel options to restore the cycling of water, organic matter, and nutrients, while still maintaining environmental and hygienic safety. Topics include but are not limited to: User acceptance of new practices for wastewater management (e.g., urine separation, source separation), new technologies for decentralized or centralized resource recovery from wastewater, use of recovered nutrient products as fertilizer, sustainability assessment, and monetizing explicit and implicit effects of management options for improved recycling of resources.

Prof. Dr. Jan Weijma
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Sewage treatment
  • Decentralized sanitation
  • Water recovery and recycling
  • Nutrient recovery and recycling
  • Circular wastewater management
  • Social and economic assessment
  • Sustainability assessment

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1281 KiB  
Article
The Use of Artificial Neural Networks and Decision Trees to Predict the Degree of Odor Nuisance of Post-Digestion Sludge in the Sewage Treatment Plant Process
by Hubert Byliński, Andrzej Sobecki and Jacek Gębicki
Sustainability 2019, 11(16), 4407; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11164407 - 15 Aug 2019
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 3022
Abstract
This paper presents the application of artificial neural networks and decision trees for the prediction of odor properties of post-fermentation sludge from a biological-mechanical wastewater treatment plant. The input parameters were concentrations of popular compounds present in the sludge, such as toluene, p-xylene, [...] Read more.
This paper presents the application of artificial neural networks and decision trees for the prediction of odor properties of post-fermentation sludge from a biological-mechanical wastewater treatment plant. The input parameters were concentrations of popular compounds present in the sludge, such as toluene, p-xylene, and p-cresol, and process parameters including the concentration of volatile fatty acids, pH, and alkalinity in the fermentation sludge. The analyses revealed that the implementation of artificial neural networks allowed the prediction of the values of odor intensity and the hedonic tone of the post-fermentation sludge at the level of 30% mean absolute percentage error. Application of the decision tree made it possible to determine what input parameters the fermentation feed should have in order to arrive at the post-fermentation sludge with an odor intensity <2 and hedonic tone >−1. It was shown that the aforementioned phenomenon was influenced by the following factors: concentration of p-xylene, pH, concentration of volatile fatty acids, and concentration of p-cresol. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability on Wastewater Treatment and Recycling)
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16 pages, 3445 KiB  
Article
Performance of an On-Site Wastewater Treatment System Using Reactive Filter Media and a Sequencing Batch Constructed Wetland
by Rajabu Hamisi, Agnieszka Renman and Gunno Renman
Sustainability 2019, 11(11), 3172; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113172 - 5 Jun 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4276
Abstract
Many on-site wastewater treatment systems, such as soil treatment systems, are not sustainable in terms of purification efficiency, nutrient recycling potential, and economics. In this case study, a sequencing batch constructed wetland (SBCW) was designed and added after a package treatment plant (PTP) [...] Read more.
Many on-site wastewater treatment systems, such as soil treatment systems, are not sustainable in terms of purification efficiency, nutrient recycling potential, and economics. In this case study, a sequencing batch constructed wetland (SBCW) was designed and added after a package treatment plant (PTP) using reactive filter media for phosphorus (P) removal and recycling. The treatment performance of the entire system in the start-up phase and its possible applicability in rural areas were investigated. Raw and treated effluents were sampled during a period of 25 weeks and analyzed for nitrogen, phosphorus, BOD7, and bacteria. Field measurements were made of wastewater flow, electrical conductivity, oxygen, and temperature. The entire system removed total-P and total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) by 83% and 22%, respectively. High salt concentration and very low wastewater temperature were possible reasons for these unexpectedly low P and TIN removal efficiencies. In contrast, removal rates of bacteria (Escherichia coli, enterococci) and organic matter (as BOD) were high, due to filtration in the alkaline medium Polonite® (Ecofiltration Nordic AB, Stockholm, Sweden) and the fine sand used as SBCW substrate. High pH in effluent from the PTP was efficiently reduced to below pH 9 in the SBCW, meeting recommendations by environmental authorities in Sweden. We concluded that treating cold on-site wastewater can impair treatment performance and that technical measures are needed to improve SBCW performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability on Wastewater Treatment and Recycling)
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