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Sustainable Future: Renewable Energy in Water and Wastewater Treatment
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Sustainable Future: Renewable Energy in Water and Wastewater Treatment

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2019) | Viewed by 28421

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Philip Davies

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Professor of Water Technology, School of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Interests: desalination; solar-powered cooling; use of biofuels in internal combustion engines

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water and waste-water treatment typically consume a significant percentage of national energy supplies, with corresponding impacts on carbon emissions and climate change. Energy usually constitutes a major operating cost of water service providers. For some arid countries, seawater desalination may represent the most energy-intensive industrial sector. The use of sustainable energy to power treatment processes is an attractive alternative to fossil fuels, but there are barriers to the penetration of renewables, such as wind and solar. To meet increasing water demands, there is an ever-growing need to enhance the energy efficiency of water treatment, and to improve the overall effectiveness of water-energy systems as a whole. Reflecting the growing variety and ambition of research activities in this theme, this Special Issue will welcome contributions in areas including (but not restricted to): Novel processes for harnessing renewable energy in water and wastewater treatment; improved understanding of the energy usage of systems, enabling improvements in efficiency or net zero-energy treatment; flexibilization of processes to accommodate fluctuating energy inputs, thus enabling greater use of renewables with reduced need of energy storage or back up generation; recovery of energy from effluents through, for example, microbial fuel cells, anaerobic digestion, thermochemical processing, etc.; improved management and governance of water and energy systems including economic and behavioral dimensions.

Prof. Philip Davies
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Renewable energies
  • process flexibilisation
  • water-energy nexus
  • desalination
  • energy efficiency
  • energy recovery
  • net zero-energy

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1485 KiB  
Article
Sugarcane Distillery Spent Wash, a New Resource for Third-Generation Biodiesel Production
by Julien Hoarau, Isabelle Grondin, Yanis Caro and Thomas Petit
Water 2018, 10(11), 1623; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10111623 - 9 Nov 2018
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5866
Abstract
Industrial production of biodiesel from microbial catalysts requires large volume of low-cost feedstock for lipid production. Vinasse, also known as distillery spent wash (DSW), is a liquid waste produced in large amounts by ethanol distilleries. This effluent is particularly rich in organic matter, [...] Read more.
Industrial production of biodiesel from microbial catalysts requires large volume of low-cost feedstock for lipid production. Vinasse, also known as distillery spent wash (DSW), is a liquid waste produced in large amounts by ethanol distilleries. This effluent is particularly rich in organic matter, and may be considered as a potential resource for the production of fungal lipids. The present study aimed at evaluating the potential of vinasse from a distillery located in Reunion Island for yeast and fungal growth, lipid production, and suitability for biodiesel requirements. Among the 28 different strains tested, we found that Aspergillus niger grown on pure vinasse allowed biomass production of up to 24.05 g/L (dry weight), whereas Aspergillus awamori produced the maximum amount of lipid, at 2.27 g/L. Nutrient removal and vinasse remediation were found to be the best for A. niger and Cryptococcus curvatus, reaching a maximum of 50% for nitrogen, and A. awamori showed 50% carbon removal. Lipids produced were principally composed of C16:0, C18:1 (n-9), and C18:2 (n-6), thus resembling the vegetal oil used in the biodiesel production. This work has shown that vinasse can support production of biomass and lipids from fungi and yeast suitable for energetic use and that its polluting charge can be significantly reduced through this process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Future: Renewable Energy in Water and Wastewater Treatment)
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13 pages, 1604 KiB  
Article
Bio-Methanol Production Using Treated Domestic Wastewater with Mixed Methanotroph Species and Anaerobic Digester Biogas
by I-Tae Kim, Young-Seok Yoo, Young-Han Yoon, Ye-Eun Lee, Jun-Ho Jo, Wonsik Jeong and Kwang-Soo Kim
Water 2018, 10(10), 1414; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10101414 - 10 Oct 2018
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 5825
Abstract
The development of cost-effective methods, which generate minimal chemical wastewater, for methanol production is an important research goal. In this study, treated wastewater (TWW) was utilized as a culture solution for methanol production by mixed methanotroph species as an alternative to media prepared [...] Read more.
The development of cost-effective methods, which generate minimal chemical wastewater, for methanol production is an important research goal. In this study, treated wastewater (TWW) was utilized as a culture solution for methanol production by mixed methanotroph species as an alternative to media prepared from commercial or chemical agents, e.g., nitrate mineral salts medium. Furthermore, a realistic alternative for producing methanol in wastewater treatment plants using biogas from anaerobic digestion was proposed. By culturing mixed methanotroph species with nitrate and phosphate-supplemented TWW in municipal wastewater treatment plants, this study demonstrates, for the first time, the application of biogas generated from the sludge digester of municipal wastewater treatment plants. NaCl alone inhibited methanol dehydrogenase and the addition of 40 mM formate as an electron donor increased methanol production to 6.35 mM. These results confirmed that this practical energy production method could enable cost-effective methanol production. As such, methanol produced in wastewater treatment plants can be used as an eco-friendly energy and carbon source for biological denitrification, which can be an alternative to reducing the expenses required for the waste water treatment process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Future: Renewable Energy in Water and Wastewater Treatment)
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15 pages, 3536 KiB  
Article
Effect of Porous Baffles on the Energy Performance of Contact Tanks in Water Treatment
by M. Anil Kizilaslan, Ender Demirel and Mustafa M. Aral
Water 2018, 10(8), 1084; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10081084 - 15 Aug 2018
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 10093
Abstract
Three-dimensional numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the effect of porous baffles on the efficiency of water treatment contact tanks. A second-order accurate numerical model is employed for the solutions of unsteady flow and tracer transport through the porous baffles. The flow through [...] Read more.
Three-dimensional numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the effect of porous baffles on the efficiency of water treatment contact tanks. A second-order accurate numerical model is employed for the solutions of unsteady flow and tracer transport through the porous baffles. The flow through the porous medium is characterized while using the Darcy-Forchheimer relationship. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model is used to simulate the instantaneous mixing of the tracer in the chambers of the contact tank. Three different porosities are considered to evaluate the effect of porosity on the hydraulic and mixing efficiencies of the contact tank. Simulated time-averaged flow field shows that porous baffles that are placed at the entrance of each chamber could successfully mitigate short-circuiting and yield plug-flow conditions through the system for low porosities. Flow in the contact tank becomes laminar as the flow velocities decrease due to viscous effects and inertial resistance in the porous zone. For this case, the tracer is transported with bulk flow through the system and leaves the contact tank with a high peak seen in the Residence Time Distribution (RTD) plot. Porous layer increases the hydraulic efficiency of the conventional design from “poor” to “good” according to the baffling factor and increases the overall efficiency from “compromising” to “good” according to the AD index. Comparison of the performance of the porous layer with the previously developed slot-baffle design shows that the slot-baffle design increases the efficiency of the tank with increasing dispersion effects, whereas the porous design increases hydraulic efficiency and reduces the dispersion effects. While the porous design reduces energy efficiency by 33% due to a drastic increase in drag in the flow through porous zone, the slot-baffle design increases the energy efficiency of the conventional design by 67%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Future: Renewable Energy in Water and Wastewater Treatment)
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16 pages, 4637 KiB  
Article
High-Rate Contact Stabilization Process-Coupled Membrane Bioreactor for Maximal Recovery of Organics from Municipal Wastewater
by Wenchen Dai, Xiaochen Xu and Fenglin Yang
Water 2018, 10(7), 878; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10070878 - 2 Jul 2018
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 5761
Abstract
The high-rate activated sludge (HRAS) process is being studied for the removal and recovery of organics with short solids retention time (SRT) from wastewater, facilitating energy recovery by the subsequent anaerobic digestion process. In the present study, the feasibility of a novel high-rate [...] Read more.
The high-rate activated sludge (HRAS) process is being studied for the removal and recovery of organics with short solids retention time (SRT) from wastewater, facilitating energy recovery by the subsequent anaerobic digestion process. In the present study, the feasibility of a novel high-rate contact stabilization (HRCS) process coupled with a membrane bioreactor (MBR) was investigated as a HRAS technique to harvest organics compared to a high-loaded MBR (HL-MBR) process treating the same sewage. Results showed that higher chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency and better bioflocculation performance were obtained using HRCS-MBR compared with HL-MBR with SRTs from 0.5 to 1.8 days. The increased bound extracellular polymeric substances content in the contactor was responsible for the improved biosorption and bioflocculation performance in the HRCS-MBR configuration. At an optimal SRT of 1.2 days, incoming organics of 47.5% and 40.5% were harvested in concentrate for HRCS-MBR and HL-MBR. These harvested organics from the concentrate per liter from HRCS-MBR and HL-MBR produced 4.28 × 10−3 and 3.72 × 10−3 kWh of electricity, respectively. The clear advantage of fouling control for HRCS-MBR was determined because of significantly lower concentrations of colloidal materials and soluble microbial products in the concentrate compared with HL-MBR. Therefore, HRCS-MBR holds promise for organics recovery and sustainable wastewater treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Future: Renewable Energy in Water and Wastewater Treatment)
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