SewagePlus II - Combined treatment of sewage and waste streams

MIP

Industrial partner

Research partner

Project leader

Synopsis

This project examines how the enrichment of domestic waste water with organic waste or secondary flows can increase the energy efficiency of water treatment plants. The approach could even lead to an energy production during the purification of enriched waste water.

Objectives

In Flanders, all infrastructure for the treatment of domestic sewage is already present and based on active sludge systems. A complete reversal in the treatment concept is not feasible in the short term. So, for Flanders we need rather to focus at ways of optimizing the existing systems. The quantity of produced biogas can be increased by co-fermentation of organic waste in the sludge digesters. In that way, an energy neutral system could be obtained. Elsewhere in the world, the challenges are great for new and fast growing cities to provide the necessary infrastructure for waste water treatment, waste collection and processing. For these cities, new concepts for the combined treatment of waste water and waste streams can be integrated in the elaboration of urban development projects. In order to achieve an accurate dimensioning and cost estimates long term tests on a larger scale are obviously essential. Therefore, this project aims to test the SewagePlus approach on a larger scale (demonstrator). This approach refers to the combined treatment of sewage and waste streams with a central role for fermentative processes. For both the regional and international context, the supply of organic streams is needed. Therefore, a first proposal for the streams that can be tested will be presented. Furthermore, different techniques for the enrichment of sewage will be investigated. At last, several scenarios for the supply of organic streams will be evaluated. The research for the Flemish context with existing water treatment infrastructure will focus on optimizing the codigestion process. Because sludge fermentation is already widely adopted, co-fermentation tests on a pilot scale will be carried out. For new infrastructure, the scale up of the first step of the SewagePlus concept, namely an acid fermentation, will be examined. Finally, the energy consumption and the environmental impact of a number of scenarios for the SewagePlus approach will be compared with conventional waste water treatment through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Based on the LCA, the best scenario will be selected and will be dimensioned for an industrial application.

Start

1/10/2010

Duration

24 months

Budget

Industrial partners: EUR 432660
Research partners: EUR 432655

Industrial partners

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