A comprehensive guide to sludge management, reuse, and disposal When wastewater is treated, reducing organic material to carbon dioxide, water, and bacterial cells the cells are disposed of, producing a semisolid and nutrient-rich byproduct called sludge. The expansion in global population and industrial activity has turned the production of excess sludge into an international environmental challenge, with the ultimate disposal of excess sludge now one of the most expensive problems faced by wastewater facilities. Written by two leading environmental engineers, Biological Sludge Minimization and Biomaterials/Bioenergy Recovery Technologies offers a comprehensive look at cutting-edge techniques for reducing sludge production, converting sludge into a value-added material, recovering useful resources from sludge, and sludge incineration. Reflecting the impact of new stringent environmental legislation, this book offers a frank appraisal of how sludge can be realistically managed, covering key concerns and the latest tools: Fundamentals of biological processes for wastewater treatment, wastewater microbiology, and microbial metabolism, essential to understanding how sludge is produced Prediction of primary sludge and waste-activated sludge production, among the chief design and operational challenges of a wastewater treatment plant Technologies for sludge reduction, with a focus on reducing microbial growth yield as well as enhancing sludge disintegration The use of anerobic digestion of sewage sludge for biogas recovery, in terms of process fundamentals, design, and operation The use of the microbial fuel cell (MFC) system for the sustainable treatment of organic wastes and electrical energy recovery

Written and edited by a team of industry experts, this exciting new volume covers clean energy production from sewage and biomass while achieving a zero-waste strategy. Wastewater treatment plants are critical in protecting both the environment’s resources and human health. A wastewater treatment plant’s technological system focuses not only on the effectiveness of the treatment but on the costs and energy consumption of the entire system. Municipal wastewater treatment produces a significant amount of sewage sludge all over the world. The majority of this sludge’s dry matter content is made up of organic compounds which are not toxic, and they consist of both primary and secondary (microbiological) sludge. There is also a substantial quantity of inorganic substances in the sludge, along with a small quantity of toxic matter. Also, various raw sewage treatment options can include energy production (heat, electricity, or biofuel) to reduce dependence on external energy supply during treatment. The most important options used for energy production from sewage and biomass can use the following approaches: anaerobic digestion, co-digestion, incineration with energy recovery, co-incineration, pyrolysis, gasification, supercritical (wet) oxidation, and hydrolysis. Generally, these processes or methods are cost-effective, but they can still have some setbacks related to the nature of the methods or the raw material used for conversion. There are also operating conditions to comply with to get a successful outcome. This book combines information from many disciplines related to wastewater treatment technologies to show how the circular economy approach can be used to achieve zero waste and produce energy that can be useful for plants and communities. This approach focuses on clean technologies for green energy resources such as biohydrogen, biofuels, and biogas from biomass and sewage sludge for zero waste production. This is aimed to also integrate the issue of energy demand and the one of energy production.

Source Reduction and Waste Minimization is the second volume in the series Advanced Zero Waste Tools: Present and Emerging Waste Management Practices. It addresses processes and practices for waste minimization to support efforts to promote a more sustainable society and provide readers with a proper understanding of the major mechanisms followed for waste minimization across fields. Despite being one of the major challenges mankind is facing to establish a sustainable society, waste minimization techniques are not broadly adopted and an organized collection of these techniques with corresponding evidence of results is not available currently. This book covers numerous mechanisms supported by scientific evidence and case studies, as well as in-depth flowcharts and process diagrams to allow for readers to adopt these processes. Summarizing the present and emerging zero waste tools on the scale of both experimental and theoretical models, Advanced Zero Waste Tools is the first step toward understanding the state-of-the-art practices in making the zero-waste goal a reality. In addition to environmental and engineering principles, it also covers economic, toxicologic, and regulatory issues, making it an important resource for researchers, engineers, and policymakers working toward environmental sustainability. - Uses fundamental, interdisciplinary, and state-of-the-art coverage of zero waste research to provide an integrated approach to tools, methodology, and indicators for waste minimization - Covers current challenges, design and manufacturing technology, and sustainability applications - Includes up-to-date references and web resources at the end of each chapter, as well as a webpage dedicated to providing supplementary information

Smart Solutions for Wastewater: Road-mapping the Transition to Circular Economy, the latest release in the Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering presents up-to-date information on research and technological developments of resource recovery in wastewater treatment in terms of carbon, nutrients and energy. The book fulfils the gaps and current challenges that hinder the application of resource recovery facilities in wastewater treatment plants, discusses knowledge gaps, provides future research perspectives, and discusses strategies to solve problems from a circular economy perspective. It is an excellent, interdisciplinary and updated overview of technologies in terms of potential yields, pollutants removal, nutrients recovery and energy production. - Covers different aspects of resource recovery technologies and research gaps in wastewater treatment - Focuses on different MBR configurations and systems/hybrid systems in treating a large variety of wastewaters - Provides state-of-the-art technology developments, including technology, advantages and challenges as well as strategies to overcome limitations - Includes technologies for managing sewage sludge in order to foster solutions for recovering in a circular economy context

This book presents a state-of-the-art report on the treatment of pulp and paper industry effluents using anaerobic technology. It covers a comprehensive range of topics, including the basic reasons for anaerobic treatment, comparison between anaerobic and aerobic treatment, effluent types suitable for anaerobic treatment, design considerations for anaerobic treatment, anaerobic reactor configurations applied for treatment of pulp and paper industry effluents, present status of anaerobic treatment in pulp and paper industry, economic aspects, examples of full scale installations and future trends.

As the global population grows and many developing countries modernize, the importance of water supply and wastewater treatment becomes a much greater factor in the welfare of nations. Clearly, in today’s world the competition for water resources coupled with the unfortunate commingling of wastewater discharges with freshwater supplies creates additional pressure on treatment systems. Recently, researchers focus on wastewater treatment by difference methods with minimal cost and maximum efficiency. This volume of the Wastewater Engineering: Advanced Wastewater Treatment Systems is a selection of topics related to physical-chemical and biological processes with an emphasis on their industrial applications. It gives an overview of various aspects in wastewater treatments methods including topics such as biological, bioremediation, electrochemical, membrane and physical-chemical applications. Experts in the area of environmental sciences from diverse institutions worldwide have contributed to this book, which should prove to be useful to students, teachers, and researchers in the disciplines of wastewater engineering, chemical engineering, environmental engineering, and biotechnology. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and support of all the contributing authors.

The concern about using organic waste as a renewable energy source is a critical worldwide issue. In this area, anaerobic digestion (AD) seems to be a promising solution because of the significant reduction of waste quantity and generation of valuable products such as biogas, regarded as being a good energy carrier and digestate with high nutritional potential for agriculture. The current trends in AD focus on improving the efficiency of the process to make this a cost-effective treatment. Depending on the source (agricultural, municipal, or industrial), organic waste varies considering both its composition and structure, and thus the bioaccessibility and biodegradability. Accordingly, materials rich in carbohydrates, proteins, and fats require different operational conditions to overcome technological problems and minimize the risk of disruption or failure of the anaerobic systems. Different strategies can be used to enhance biogas production, including waste pretreatment (physical, chemical, physico-chemical, biological, and combined), two-stage AD (temperaturephased AD and two-phase AD), anaerobic co-digestion (two-substrate and multi-substrate systems), and bioaugmentation (with natural strains or specialized consortia of microorganisms and genetically modified microorganisms or their consortia). Some of them enhance its accessibility and digestibility, while others improve nutritional balance, metabolic properties, and operational factors, facilitating synergistic effect of microorganisms. This book covers the current developments in the area of enhancing biogas production.

The handbook provides an understanding of consolidated processing and biorefinery systems for the production of bio-based chemicals and value-added bioproducts from renewable sources. The chapters look at a variety of bioenergy technological advances and improvements in the energy and materials sectors that aim to lower our dependence of fossil fuels and consequently reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The volume looks at a selection of processes for the production of energy and biomaterials, including the Fischer–Tropsch process, gasification, pyrolysis, combustion, fermentation from renewable sources (such as, plants, animals and their byproducts), and others. Applications that are explored include transportation fuels, biodiesel production, wastewater treatment, edible packaging, bioplastics, physical rehabilitation, tissue engineering, biomedical applications, thermal insulation, industrial value compounds, and more. All of the topics covered in this publication address consolidated processes that play a pivotal role in the production of bioenergy and biomaterials because these processes require fewer unitary operations needed in the process, leading to a more direct method of production. This type of production system contributes to decreasing negative effects on the environment, lowering costs, saving energy and time, and improving profitability and efficiency. This volume will be valuable for the industrial sector, for researchers and scientists, as well as for faculty and advanced students.

Current research revolves around trends to bring technology into harmony with the natural environment and in order to protect the ecosystem. Bioremediation involves processes which reduce the overall treatment costs by using agricultural residues. Regeneration of the biosorbent further increases the cost effectiveness of the process, thus warranting its future success in solving water quality problems. Special emphasis is paid to chemical modifications resulting in tailored novel biomaterials which improve its sorption efficiency and environmental stability. In this way it can be used commercially as a simple, fast, economical, ecofriendly green technology, for the removal of toxic metals from waste water particularly in rural and remote areas of the country.

The effective removal of dyes from aqueous waste is an important issue for many industrialized countries. The traditional treatment methods used to remove dyes from wastewater have certain disadvantages such as incomplete dye removal, high reagent and energy requirements, and the generation of toxic sludge or other waste products that require disposal. The search for alternative and innovative treatment techniques has focused attention on the use of biological materials for dye removal and recovery technologies. This brief summarizes the latest developments in this important field.