Nutrient recovery from wastewater in India: A perspective from mass and energy balance for a sustainable circular economy

09 May 2022, Version 3
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Limited phosphorus availability and increased eutrophication (due to discharge of nitrogen) have pushed everyone to rethink, on how to recover these nutrients. Wastewater (WW) is a potential source to recover N, and P, whereas in India, it is scarcely explored. In this work, four different nutrient recovery methods were compared from a mass- and energy- balance perspective to understand the overall process flow. From 1000-m3 WW, chemical precipitation yielded 33.8 kg struvite, while micro-algae resulted in 299.1 kg (dry powder). Energy consumption was lowest for the fuel cells at 216.2 kWh/1000m3, while microalgae used the highest energy at 943.3 kWh/1000m3. Nonetheless, cost-saving analysis showed that microalgae (78.6$/1000 m3) as a nutrient recovery choice, had higher savings than any other methods compared. For a country like India, where the two-thirds of urban wastewater is untreated, wastewater-biorefinery options such as nutrient recovery hold the key for a sustainable circular economy.

Keywords

Nutrient recovery
wastewater in India
mass balance
energy balance
economic analysis

Supplementary materials

Title
Description
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Title
Design, sizing, and volume; energy balance calculations for nutrient recovery systems with conventional sewage treatment plant
Description
The supplementary material consists of four boxes. Box 1- Design and calculations of a conventional sewage treatment plant; Box 2- Sizing and volume calculations of various nutrient recovery systems; Box 3- Energy consumption calculations of various unit operations in a conventional sewage treatment plant; Box 4- Energy consumption and power rating calculations of various nutrient recovery systems
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