A comparison of novel and conventional sewage treatment plants in terms of energy requirements, operational costs and organic micropollutants removal

Abstract

The goal of this Thesis is to evaluate the energy requirements, the operational costs and the organic micropollutants (OMPs) removal in different novel sewage treatment plant (STP) configurations based on rotating belt filters, chemically enhanced primary treatment and high-rate activated sludge or combinations for organic matter recovery followed by a partial nitritation-anammox unit and to compare the results with those of a conventional STP configuration. The different novel STP configurations evaluated significantly decrease the energy requirements in comparison with conventional STPs. The alternative based on high-rate activated sludge reaches comparable energy demand and also considerably lower operational costs than the other evaluated configurations. In terms of OMPs, all the studied novel STP configurations reach similar removal efficiencies from wastewater for most them, However, among the studied alternatives, the novel STP configurations based on the high-rate activated sludge reactor achieve the lowest presence of OMPs in digested sludge. In conclusion, the STP configurations based on high-rate activated sludge become the preferable option from a holistic point of view.