Technology Roadmap for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment Plants in a Carbon-Constrained World (häftad, eng)

In May 2009, the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) convened a work group of international experts in the wastewater sector to develop a Wastewater Treatment Technology Roadmap which will identify possible routes to sustainable wastewater treatment in a carbon-constrained worldThe resultant Technology Roadmap report identifies pathways toward sustainable wastewater systems over the next few decades, including various approaches the sector could utilize over the 20-30 year planning horizon.

The Technology Roadmap describes the current status of wastewater technologies, projects future treatment quality requirements, identifies research needs, and summarizes ongoing activities to meet the perceived future objectives such as reducing the carbon footprint while achieving lower nutrient levelsWork group participants brainstormed possible technology concepts which can be reasonably expected to produce actionable results that can be implemented by interested wastewater utilities. The participants considered typical and atypical approaches to optimizing carbon and nutrient management at WWTPs.

Typical approaches include the evaluation of process modeling opportunities and constraints, and incremental resource and carbon management optimization techniques. Atypical approaches will be even more important to the future of wastewater resource reclamation. As an additional outcome, several work group members suggested conceptual and sustainable “plant of the future” treatment systems not constrained by existing infrastructure.

Participants discussed their “Plant of the Future” concepts which can be expected to generate opportunities and research needs related to energy sources within treatment plants, changing wastewater characteristics, decentralized treatment, increased nutrient recovery and management, and total water reuse.