Life Cycle Assessment of a Common Effluent Treatment Plant

Abstract

This LCA study is performed on Common Effluent Treatment Plant which treats recalcitrant wastewater with the help of Hydrodynamic Cavitation Technology. There have been LCA studies on various AOP based wastewater treatment plants but no study on Hydrodynamic Cavitation Technology, in particular. This project work includes complete 3 phases of Life Cycle Assessment and 4 th phase of LCA is performed partially. SimaPro v8.3 LCA software is used. 3 LCIA methods were chosen based on objectives. ReCiPe Midpoint (E) and TRACI 2.1 are used to identify environmental hotspots in the processes of CETP. IPCC GWP (2013) 100a is also chosen to calculate the Carbon Footprint of processes of CETP. The results show that transportation of effluent by diesel fuelled tankers and utilization of liquid chlorine for hydrodynamic cavitation are showing maximum possible environmental impacts in almost all impact categories considered. The impacts of one process are linked to its input processes. Also, the electricity utilized for pumping of industrial effluent from collection tank and electricity utilized for the working of hydrodynamic cavitation reactor sumps is also high. There are few other processes also which are showing considerable amount of possible environmental impacts. Based on the analysis, the transportation of industrial effluent and chemicals used should be modified for decreasing CETP’s overall possible environmental impacts.