Energy and Resource Recovery from Sludge

There is general consensus among sanitary engineering professionals that municipal wastewater and wastewater sludge is not a “waste”, but a potential source of valuable resources.

Energy and Resource Recovery from Sludge provides essential knowledge on energy and resource recovery from sludge and focuses on:

• The international situation of energy and resource recovery from sludge,
• How the use of different sludge treatment processes affects the possibility of recovering energy and/or materials from the residual sludge,
• The influence of market and regulatory drivers on the fate of the sludge end-product,
• The feasibility of energy and resource recovery from sludge,
• The social, economic and environmental performance (triple bottom line or TBL assessment) of current alternatives technologies.

International cases studies of established technologies existing at full-scale with commercial applications, as well as those that can potentially be commercialized are provided. Emerging technologies that have been demonstrated only at pilot-scale or bench (laboratory) scale are included.

Energy recovery technologies can be classified into sludge-to-biogas processes, sludge-to-syngas processes, sludge-to-oil processes and sludge-to-liquid processes. The technologies available for resource recovery include those to recover phosphorus, building materials, nitrogen, volatile acids, etc. Technical, capital cost, operating and maintenance (O&M) costs information available are documented to the extent possible for each technology. Possibilities of upgrading biosolids pellets produced from sludge as renewable source of inoculum for bio-hydrogen gas production and also recovering of bio-pesticides from sludge are new research areas.

General Introduction; Playing Field and Boundaries; Current International Practices, Regulations, Status of Sludge Production, Fate of Sludge end Product, Products Recoverable from Sewage Sludge, Sludge Disposal Situation in Different Countries;  Review of Current Knowledge on Energy and Resource Recovery from Sludge, Categories of Treatment Processes for Resources Recovery, Phosphorus Recovery, Calcium Phosphate Recovery, Building Material Recovery, Energy Recovery, Sludge to Biogas, Sludge-to-Syngas Processes, Sludge-to-Oil Processes, Sludge-to-Liquid Processes, Market Drivers, Sustainability/Environmental Concerns,  Energy Cost and Type, Resource Quality and Quantity, Regulation/Legislation, Feasibility of Energy and Resource Recovery,Technical Feasibility, Economic Feasibility, Social Feasibility; Future Developments/Emerging Technologies, Emerging Technologies for Resource Recovery, Emerging Technologies for Phosphorus Recovery, New Investigations for Building Material Recovery, ARP Technology for Nitrogen Recovery, BIOSOL Process for Low Metal Containing Compost Production, Volatile Acids Production, Bio-Pesticides, Emerging Technologies for Energy Recovery, Emerging Sludge-to-Biogas Processes, Emerging Sludge-to-Oil Processes, Emerging Sludge-to-Liquid Processes, Processes for Energy and Resource Recovery, KTH Two-Stage Acid-Base Leaching Concept, Aqua-ReciTM Technology; International Case Studies; Triple Bottom Line Assessment, Introduction, The TBL Approach, TBL Evaluation, Energy Recovery, Resource Recovery, Limits of the TBL Evaluation, This Report in Wider Context; Gaps in Knowledge, Identification of Gaps, Energy Balance, Capital and O&M Costs, Quantity of Raw Material Used and Resources Produced, Technologies for P Recovery from Iron Precipitates, Technologies for Coagulant Recovery and Recycling, Life Cycle Analysis, Social Acceptance Surveys, Modeling Energy and esource Recovery Technologies,  Optimal Pathway for Sludge Treatment,  Summary of the Knowledge Gaps of the Technologies, Recommendations Resulting from Knowledge Gap Analysis; Appendix A: Literature Review of Anaerobic Digestion and Energy Recovery from Wastewater Sludge; Appendix B: Detailed Descriptions of Existing Energy and Resource Recovery Technologies; Appendix C: Detailed Descriptions of Emerging Energy and Resource Recovery