Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences this final year were 1) the attendees of the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA) 2000 Conference, wastewater session, held virtually because of pandemic travel restrictions, and 2) the readership of Journal of Cleaner Production, one of the highest impact journals in the field. Changes/Problems:The inability of Biowin v6 to correctly simulate organic acid digesters at wastewater treatment plants was surprising and required a months-long diversion into understanding and remedying the problem. The resulting solution, optimization of Biowin parameters for the purpose, is itself a product, albeit unintended. No modification required. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This work has provided a training opportunity for Donald Vineyard, who is co-advised by KG Karthikeyan of the Dept of Biological Systems Engineering. In the past year, he has learned the ins and outs of manuscript preparation for publication and dealing with editors. He has also learned the use of Biowin, a professional wastewater treatment plant simulation, the internal parameters of Biowin, and their optimization. Mr. Baylor Haen, has gained some firsthand experience assisting with the electrodialysis pilot at a local wastewater treatment plant, as well as considerable supervised lab work. Christy Davidson, senior research specialist in the Barak lab, has developed new skills while assisting Donnie Vineyard in manuscript preparation for the nitrogen recovery portion of the work and has assisted him in the intellectual development of the modeling effort related to phosphate recovery. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated to communities of interest by publication of two peer-reviewed manuscripts (one of which has been resubmitted after minor edits) and two professional presentations, one oral and one poster, in the wastewater session of a life cycle assessment conference. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This year, head-to-head comparisons of power consumption, fossil fuel consumption, global warming potential, eutrophication potential and acidification potential were established for nitrification/denitrification and anammox processes for nitrogen removal at wastewater plants, fugitive greenhouse gas emissions, aeration energy consumption, and capital and operating costs were either published, submitted for publication, or presented at professional organizations. Comparisons were produced using these metrics for these two existing technologies to those for nitrogen recovery using a newly-patented electrodialysis technique using monovalent-selecting membranes to exceed previous technological limitations, with the goal of extracting ammonium ions from sewage for market as ammonium-based fertilizer while limiting mineral scale and fouling from polyvalent ions. These publication and publishing venues allowed us to report that nitrogen removal and recovery by electrodialysis is estimated to carry both lower initial capital costs and lower operation costs than traditional technologies, totaling $15.56, $4.09 and $0.37 per kg N removed or recovered by denitrification, anammox and electrodialysis, respectively. Electrodialysis was also projected to be environmentally favorable compared to the state of the art, projecting electricity savings similar to anammox. With the offset of industrial ammonia manufacture, electrodialysis had lower impacts than rival technologies in eight of 10 environmental impact categories and net negative impact in 8 of 10 categories. Moving from novel technologies for nitrogen recovery at wastewater treatment plants to those technologies for phosphorus recovery, we discovered that Biowin v6, a well-reputed computer simulation used to model wastewater treatment plants, failed to adequately model organic acid digesters, producing pH and soluble phosphate concentrations too low to match available data sets from a particular wastewater treatment plant. We undertook a sensitivity analysis of the internal parameters of Biowin and then optimized parameters against the data set to obtain a working organic acid simulation that can published and applied to other wastewater treatment plants. The optimized parameters included a number of microbiological kinetic and apportionment parameters, as well as some chemical parameters that must be adjusted to reflect certain shortcuts inside Biowin. With this accomplished, simulation of brushite production by the CalPrex system and similar can now proceed using Biowin and similar models. Comparison of phosphorus recovery technologies to each other and alternative dispersal/disposal and conventional P fertilizer manufacture remains incomplete and in progress using alternative funding sources.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Vineyard, DL, A Hicks, KG Karthikeyan, and P Barak. 2020. Economic analysis of electrodialysis, denitrification, and anammox for nitrogen removal in municipal wastewater treatment. J. Cleaner Production 262:121145. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121145
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Vineyard, DL, A Hicks, KG Karthikyen, C Davidson and P Barak. 202x. Life cycle assessment of electrodialysis for nitrogen recovery in municipal wastewater treatment with comparison to denitrification and anammox. Cleaner Environmental Systems
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Vineyard, DL, A Hicks, KG Karthikeyan, and P Barak. 2020. Economic and life cycle assessment of electrodialysis, denitrification, and anammox for nitrogen removal in municipal wastewater treatment. ACLCA 2000 Conference (abstract and oral presentation, 24 Sep 2020)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Vineyard, DL, A Hicks, KG Karthikeyan, and P Barak. 2020. Preliminary evaluation of emerging WWTP phosphorus recovery technologies. ACLCA 2000 Conference (abstract and poster presentation, 24 Sep 2020)
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Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience this year was: 1) staff at the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, including Matt Seib, process and research engineer, and 2) ~ 50 attendees of a public Master of Science thesis defense on 15 July 2019, entitled "Economic and Life Cycle Assessment of Electrodialysis, Denitrification and Anammox for Nitrogen Removal from Municipal Wastewater", followed by questions and answers. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This work has provided a training opportunity for Donald Vineyard, who is co-advised by KG Karthikeyan of the Dept of Biological Systems Engineering. In the past year, he has visited additional wastewater treatment plants and manure digesters to broaden his exposure to the field and he has progressed in the field of Life Cycle Assessment. Our undergraduate assistant, Mr. Baylor Haen, has gained some firsthand experience assisting with the electrodialysis pilot at a local wastewater treatment plant, as well as considerable supervised lab work. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, two manuscripts will be submitted for peer-reviewed publication based on the thesis. An oral presentation at the Central States Water Environment Association is planned. Having completed the comparison of nitrogen removal/recovery technologies, research focus will shift to life cycle assessment of rival phosphorus recovery technologies: brushite and struvite recovery vs wasting to biosolids.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Head-to-head comparisons of power consumption, fossil fuel consumption, global warming potential, eutrophication potential and acidification potential were established for nitrification/denitrification and anammox processes for nitrogen removal at wastewater plants, fugitive greenhouse gas emissions, aeration energy consumption, and capital and operating costs. Comparisons were produced using these metrics for these two existing technologies to those for nitrogen recovery using a newly-patented electrodialysis technique using monovalent-selecting membranes to exceed previous technological limitations, with the goal of extracting ammonium ions from sewage for market as ammonium-based fertilizer while limiting mineral scale and fouling from polyvalent ions. The calculational model of Tanaka (2015) was modified and improved to provide a description of the theoretical behavior of the electrodialysis system and compared to publicly available electrodialysis data. It was found that nitrogen removal and recovery by electrodialysis is estimated to carry both lower initial capital costs and lower operation costs than traditional technologies, totaling $15.56, $4.09 and $0.37 per kg N removed or recovered by denitrification, anammox and electrodialysis, respectively. Electrodialysis was also projected to be environmentally favorable compared to the state of the art, projecting electricity savings similar to anammox. With the offset of industrial ammonia manufacture, electrodialysis had lower impacts than rival technologies in eight of 10 environmental impact categories and net negative impact in 8 of 10 categories.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached this year included staff at the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, including Matt Seib, process and research engineer, and four members of MMSD's Ecosystem Services group, including pollution prevention specialists Kathy Lake, Emily Jones, and Katherine Harris. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This work has provided a training opportunity for Donald Vineyard, who is coadvised by KG Karthikeyan of the Dept of Biological Systems Engineering. He has visited more treatment plants and manure digesters in the past year to broaden his exposure to the field. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting year, it is expected that the expansion to nitrogen recovery by electrodialysis will be completed and a three-way comparison with nitrification/denitrification and anammox will be complete. An oral presentation at the Central States Water Environment Association, CSWEA, is planned. A manuscript summarizing work to date will be submitted to an appropriate peer-reviewed journal.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Head-to-head comparisons of power consumption, fossil fuel consumption, global warming potential, eutrophication potential and acidification potential were established for nitrification/denitrification and anammox processes for nitrogen removal at wastewater plants. Also fugitive greenhouse gas emissions, aeration energy consumption, and at least a usable version of capital costs are done for both Nitrification/Denitrification and Anammox. Work was begun and progressed toward including a third nitrogen removal technique, embracing nitrogen recovery by electrodialysis, for comparison with the other two that have more traction currently with the treatment industry. This work with electrodialysis involved collecting electrodialysis results from labmates in the same department, running at lab-scale and pilot-scale, reducing results to single-scale units of flux and current density. Further, work with the published electrodialysis model of Tanaka (2015) introduced improvements in coding and solution-finding.
Publications
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Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached this year included: 1) Matt Seib, process and research engineer at Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, who directs, monitors and coordinates research being performed by outside agencies such as the University of Wisconsin, and 2) Doug VanOrnum, Vice President, Strategy & Technology, for DVO, Inc., an anaerobic digestor and renewable technology company based in Chilton, WI. Changes/Problems:Working with the research assistant, it became apparent that the student was not well-practiced in laboratory skills. Efforts were made to engage him in the lab practice in ongoing work in the Barak lab relevant to his project. Additionally, it was discovered that the anaerobic digest at the Waunakee manure digester had a higher-than-expected level of solids, requiring additional filtration or centrifugation before electrodialysis. Therefore, to get a life cycle assessment of N recovery from manure digesters additional work removing solids will be required and its operation incorporated in the life cycle assessment. An 'algae centrifuge', a type of basket continuous centrifuge, was acquired and will be put into trial in this next year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This work has provided a training opportunity for Donald L Vineyard under the direction of Prof. Phillip Barak. He visited a number of wastewater treatment operations to familiarize himself with the processes involved. He encountered the issue of total solids in the centrifuged manure digests at the Waunakee manure digester, which creates a challenge for application of electrodialysis, and the need for additional centrifugation prior to electrodialysis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The LCA will be expanded to include modeling of uncertainty in power and N2O emission from nitrification/denitrification and anammox. Results will be disseminated by publication in appropriate peer-reviewed literature and possibly through oral presentation at the Central States Water Environment Association, CSWEA. The work will then be extended to additional N recovery technologies described in the proposal and to P recovery processes, including struvite and brushite.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Using life cycle asssessment tools, a preliminary determination was made of power consumption, gwp, eutrophication potential and acidification potential for nitrification/denitrification (with methanol addition), anammox, and electrodialysis for ammonium removal, all located as sidestream processes. Initial assessments are single point values due to pending implementation of Monte Carlo simulation of uncertainties. The first two are N removal processes and the last is N recovery, which permits an offset equivalent to the amount of N displaced by Haber-Bosch synthesis from natural gas. The N recovery method using electrodialysis easily surpasses the N removal processes. In doing this work, electrodialysis as an N recovery process has been compared to alternative nutrient removal processes (3b) and conventional manufacture of fertilizer (3c). A manuscript and publication firming up these conclusions is in preparation.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/16 to 09/30/16
Outputs
Target Audience:
Nothing Reported
Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A graduate student was engaged starting 1 Sep 2016 for this project and enrolled in classes during the one-month reporting period. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will determine the various 'cradle-to-gate' environmental impacts of several nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient recovery methods at wastewater treatment plants. A.A survey of LCA tools will be initially conducted. The EPA has its own LCA tool, TRACI, and lists ~20 software packages and databases on the EPA's LCA Resources webpage (http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/std/lca/resources.html#Software), some covering industrial processes in general and others specific to wastewater treatment. There are additional software packages not on that list, including the open source OpenLCA, which will be considered. Advice from colleagues and reviewers will be solicited. B.The boundaries of the LCA problem and the environmental impacts to be considered will be determined for the various P and N recovery scenarios. To be considered, the WWTP itself, the energy source for nutrient recovery, chemical production processes, off-site application of biosolids and conventional fertilizer production. Where required, the geographic and agricultural context will be Wisconsin and, more generally, the US Midwest. C.Most of the work will be literature-, software- and database- oriented, and therefore not specific as to site. However, as required and practical, site visits and interviews will be conducted to assess the process inputs into the process: Ostara (Madison), MultiForm Harvest (Green Bay), brushite (Woodridge, IL), MetroGro and biosolids application (Madison), electrodialysis (either Madison or Woodridge, IL). NRU's WWTP and engineering contacts will be tapped for professional assistance as needed.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Graduate student has been on board one month and started looking through the literature toward addressing the goals of the project.
Publications
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