Sustainable Management of Wastewater and Sludge

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental and Green Processes".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2024 | Viewed by 561

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Interests: Integrated urban water managment; Biogas upgrading; Sludge treatment; Iron salts

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Interests: wastewater treatment; biogas; sediments; wastewater; separation
Colleage of Environmental science and engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Interests: nitrogen and phosphorus removal; anaerobic digestion; anammox; sludge fermentation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The activated sludge system, a stable biotechnology that has been utilized in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for decades, effectively removes nutrients such as organics, nitrogen, and phosphorus from wastewater. However, it generates substantial amounts of waste-activated sludge (WAS), which requires expensive disposal. Medium to large-scale WWTPs commonly use anaerobic sludge digestion processes to recover organics from WAS as bioenergy (i.e., biogas) and to stabilize the sludge. Many smaller-scale WWTPs rely on aerobic sludge digestion processes to mineralize and stabilize WAS. However, the current wastewater treatment processes require a significant energy input, and existing sludge treatment methods produce low-quality sludge while exhibiting relatively low efficiency. In the era of the circular economy, the wastewater industry necessitates technologies with high efficiency and low energy consumption. Therefore, our Special Issue titled “Sustainable Management of Wastewater and Sludge” focuses on the development of novel biotechnologies in the wastewater and sludge industry to promote the circular economy.

This Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

  • Nitrogen removal biotechnology;
  • Phosphorus removal biotechnology;
  • Resource recovery biotechnology;
  • Low greenhouse gas emission biotechnology;
  • Integrated wastewater and sludge management;
  • Innovitive uses of digestate (both liquid and solid).

We look forward to receiving contributions that will advance the field and foster the principles of the circular economy.

Dr. Zhetai Hu
Dr. Zhiqiang Zuo
Dr. Bo Wang
Guest Editors

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. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2400 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

  • sustainable biotechnology
  • wastewater treatment
  • sludge treatment
  • low greenhouse gas emission
  • resource recovery
  • nitrogen removal
  • integrated wastewater management
  • use of digestate
  • bioplastics

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 3448 KiB  
Article
Full-Scale Demonstration of Nitrogen Removal from Mature Landfill Leachate Using a Two-Stage Partial Nitritation and Anammox Process
by Rui Du, Dandan Lu, Zhiqiang Zuo, Renfu Zhang, Xi Lu, Chunshen Zhu and Zhetai Hu
Processes 2024, 12(7), 1307; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/pr12071307 - 24 Jun 2024
Viewed by 280
Abstract
The excessive discharge of nitrogen leads to water eutrophication. The partial nitritation and anammox (PN/A) process is a promising technology for biological nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment. However, applying it to mature landfill leachate (MLL) faces challenges, as the toxic substances (e.g., heavy [...] Read more.
The excessive discharge of nitrogen leads to water eutrophication. The partial nitritation and anammox (PN/A) process is a promising technology for biological nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment. However, applying it to mature landfill leachate (MLL) faces challenges, as the toxic substances (e.g., heavy metal) within MLL inhibit the activity of anammox bacteria. Therefore, most previous studies focused on diluted, pretreated, or chemically adjusted MLL. This study demonstrated at full scale that the two-stage PN/A process can treat raw MLL. Initially, the operational issue of sludge floatation resulted in rapid biomass loss with overflow discharging, which selectively suppresses nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB), promoting the achievement of nitrite accumulation. After that, the NOB suppression was self-sustained by the high in situ free ammonia concentration, i.e., 26.2 ± 15.9 mg N/L. In the subsequent anammox tank, nitrogen removal primarily occurred via the anammox process, complemented by denitrification, achieving total nitrogen removal efficiency exceeding 72%. In addition, the nitrogen removal capacity of this system was significantly influenced by temperature with the nitrogen-loading rate above 0.4 kg N/m3/d at 38 °C and approximately 0.1 kg N/m3/d at 21 °C. The optimization of system operation, such as gradually increasing MLL content, remains necessary to enhance nitrogen removal capacity further. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management of Wastewater and Sludge)
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