RT Journal Article
T1 Decentralised treatment versus integrated biorefinery recovery of polyhydroxyalkanoates and struvite from urban and organic waste: A life cycle assessment approach
A1 Blumenthal, Elisa
A1 Estévez Rivadulla, Sofía
A1 Fatone, Francesco
A1 Moreira Vilar, María Teresa
K1 Life cycle assessment
K1 Polyhydroxyalkanoates
K1 Sewage sludge
K1 Wastewater treatment
AB Despite being a well-known alternative for the valorisation of organic wastes, anaerobic digestion needs to evolve toward the synthesis of higher-value products ensuring higher organic matter yield and economic profits. Large-scale implementation and robust environmental assessments of such integrated systems remain limited. This study compares two waste management scenarios for the Lombardy region (Italy): the current decentralised system (Actual Scenario) and a novel centralised biorefinery configuration (Biorefinery Scenario) designed to recover polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), struvite, heat and electricity. Following Life Cycle Assessment principles, the Product Environmental Footprint method was applied to quantify environmental impacts and identify key contributors to system performance. The results show that implementing a biorefinery at the Italian facility can reduce climate change (CC) impacts by 22 %. However, these benefits depend strongly on the PHA extraction method: only mechanical disruption and sodium hydroxide extraction keep CC impacts below those of the Actual Scenario (177.8 kg CO₂eq/t input waste). Biogas purification, sludge incineration and struvite recovery are identified as major hotspots requiring optimisation. Reducing energy demand (responsible for 31 % of CC impacts) and improving the management of direct emissions from biogas combustion are key priorities for enhancing environmental performance. Overall, this study provides one of the first integrated MFA–LCA assessments of a regional biorefinery simultaneously treating sewage sludge, agri-food residues and OFMSW using real operational data. By demonstrating both the potential and the critical limitations of multi-output resource-recovery systems, the work offers new scientific evidence to support the design, optimisation and policy development of future circular biorefineries
PB Elsevier
SN 2214-7144
YR 2025
FD 2025-12-12
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44474
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44474
LA eng
NO Blumenthal, E., Estévez, S., Fatone, F., Moreira, M.T., 2026. Decentralised treatment versus integrated biorefinery recovery of polyhydroxyalkanoates and struvite from urban and organic waste: A life cycle assessment approach.. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 81, 109279.
NO This research has been supported by the BIORECER (No 101060684) project, funded by the European Commission HORIZON CL6–2021-ZEROPOLLUTION-01. The authors kindly acknowledge the public utility Cap Holding SpA, in particular Tomaso Amati and Samuele Vito. S. Estévez and M.T. Moreira, authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group (GRC ED431C 2021/37) and to the Cross-disciplinary Research in Environmental Technologies (CRETUS Research Center, ED431G 2023/12)
DS Minerva
RD 30 abr 2026