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

03 February 2022, Version 2
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Limited global phosphorus availability and increased eutrophication due to discharge of nitrogen pushed everyone to rethink the way, on how to recover nutrients. Wastewater is a potential source to recover N and P, while in India, it is scarcely explored. Understanding nutrient recovery systems involve exploring individual unit operations, sizing, and their energy consumption. Most studies on nutrient recovery from wastewater have focussed on retrieving, while least studies focused on mass and energy balance, which holds the key for its application potential. In this work, four different nutrient recovery system was compared, when added to an STP plant for a mid-size city in India. The results indicate that fuel cells consume the lowest energy at 216.2 kWh/1000m3, while microalgae used the highest energy at 943.3 kWh/1000m3. However, from a cost point of view except microalgae (78.6$/1000 m3) other nutrient systems did not yield any savings.

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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