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Exergy Analysis and Environmental Impact

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Exergy

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the definition and application of exergy indexes to assess the performance of environmental impact mitigation technologies. These parameters are employed to evaluate the performance of air emission treatment systems, procedures to remediate contaminated sites, management of solid wastes, and technologies of wastewater treatment technologies. Initially it is proposed that the cumulative consumption of materials and utilities for construction and operation of environmental treatment systems can be quantified in terms of exergy. In addition, the exergy content of the emissions of a given production process, as well as the exergy of by-products of the treatment process, can be quantified to develop an exergy balance, focused on the treatment process. Thus, a methodology is described to compare different process alternatives in two situations: in the former the main task of the process is to eliminate the exergy content of a given emission, and in the latter the objective of the process is to maximize the utilization of the exergy content of a given emission. The environmental performance of wastewater treatment technologies is conducted by calculating the environmental exergy efficiency and complemented with the determination of the renewability exergy index. This approach is applied to compare three wastewater treatment plants based on biological (aerobic and anaerobic) and physicochemical processes.

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Abbreviations

a i :

activity of species i

b :

specific chemical exergy (kJ/kmol)

B :

exergy rate/flow rate

n i :

number of moles of species i

η b,env :

environmental exergy efficiency

η d :

exergy index for contaminant destruction

η p :

exergy index for waste converted product

μ i :

chemical potential of species i

μ o,i :

chemical potential of species i at the reference state

contaminant:

related to contaminants of a given process

deact:

additional natural resources during waste deactivation

destroyed:

destroyed

disp:

related to waste disposal of the process

materials/utilities:

related to materials and utilities

nat.res:

natural resources consumed by the processes

prep:

required for extraction and preparation of the natural resources

process:

related to a given energy conversion process

product:

useful effect of a process

reject:

related to a reject

waste:

related to wastes

AEnC:

accumulated energy consumption

AExC:

accumulated exergy consumption

COD:

chemical oxygen demand

BOD:

biological oxygen demand

TOC:

total organic carbon

UASB:

upflow anaerobic sludge blanket

WTP:

wastewater treatment plant

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mechanical Engineering Department, Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, São Paulo, 05508-970, Brazil

    Silvio de Oliveira Junior

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de Oliveira Junior, S. (2013). Exergy Analysis and Environmental Impact. In: Exergy. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4165-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4165-5_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-4164-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4165-5

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