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A comparison between two full-scale MBR and CAS municipal wastewater treatment plants: techno-economic-environmental assessment

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Abstract

A holistic assessment procedure has been used in this study for comparing conventional activated sludge (CAS) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) processes for the treatment of municipal wastewater. Technical, social, administrative, economic and environmental impacts have been evaluated based on 1 year of operational data from three full-scale lines (one MBR and two CAS) working in parallel in a large municipal treatment plant. The comparative assessment evidences a slight advantage of the conventional process in the studied case, essentially due to lower costs, complexity and energy consumption. On the other hand, the MBR technology has a better social acceptance and similar overall environmental footprint. Although these results are influenced by site-specific parameters and cannot be generalized, the assessment procedure allowed identifying the most important factors affecting the final scores for each technology and the main differences between the compared technologies. Local conditions can affect the relative importance of the assessed impacts, and the use of weighting factors is proposed for better tailoring the comparative assessment to the local needs and circumstances. A sensitivity analysis on the weighted final scores demonstrated how local factors are very important and must be carefully evaluated in the decision making process.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to the managing staff of the Verziano-Brescia (Italy) WWTP (A2A S.p.A). A special thanks also to Eng. Patrizia Quinzani for her contribution in the first phase of data collection and processing.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil, Environmental, Architectural Engineering and Mathematics, University of Brescia, via Branze 43, I-25123, Brescia, Italy

    Giorgio Bertanza, Matteo Canato & Mentore Vaccari

  2. CNR—Istituto di Ricerca sulle Acque, viale De Blasio 5, I-70132, Bari, Italy

    Giuseppe Laera

  3. Division of Environmental Systems Analysis, Chalmers University of Technology, SE 412 96, Göteborg, Sweden

    Magdalena Svanström & Sara Heimersson

Authors
  1. Giorgio Bertanza
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  2. Matteo Canato
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  3. Giuseppe Laera
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  4. Mentore Vaccari
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  5. Magdalena Svanström
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  6. Sara Heimersson
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Contributions

Giorgio Bertanza: research coordination and supervision and techno-economic assessment.

Matteo Canato: techno-economic assessment.

Mentore Vaccari: WWTP monitoring data collection and literature review.

Giuseppe Laera: mass balance calculations.

Magdalena Svanström and Sara Heimersson: environmental assessment.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giorgio Bertanza.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Bingcai Pan

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Bertanza, G., Canato, M., Laera, G. et al. A comparison between two full-scale MBR and CAS municipal wastewater treatment plants: techno-economic-environmental assessment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 17383–17393 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9409-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9409-3

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