Aplicació de la metodologia de l’Anàlisi de Cicle de Vida (ACV) a una depuradora de fangs actius (Manlleu)
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Human activity generates waste water that must be treated before returning to the receiving
environment. WWTP are designed and operated to remove contaminants present in the
wastewater so that the impact on the receiving environment is permitted; however, WWTPs,
like any industrial activity or production process also generate some environmental impacts.
There is the need to minimize these impacts both existing plants and possible extensions of
plants with new technologies for purification stricter limits. The life cycle analysis is a widely
accepted method of evaluation and interpretation of the environmental impacts of a process
or product.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the Manlleu WWTP
through life cycle analysis (LCA), which is a methodology that takes into account the use of
materials, energy and discharges into the environment during the construction stages,
transportation, operation and dismantling. The life cycle stages considered in the study were
the construction and operation of the WWTP. The environmental impact during the operation
phase of a WWTP is due to energy consumption, use of chemicals, emissions to air and water
and sludge production. Also taken into account the use of materials for the construction of the
plant and has been ruled out include the dismantling process. For the construction phase, we
have analyzed the consumption of building materials from the budgets of the civil works and
the operation phase inputs (energy, chemicals...) and outputs (water, sludge, emissions... to
the atmosphere) system. The functional unit chosen for the study was the volume of treated
water for 20 years. Inventory data during the operation phase are taken from different
operation controlling documents of the WWTP 2014. Finally, it was considered that the WWTP
has a lifespan of 20 years.
For evaluation of the inventory life cycle analysis it was used SimaPro® software and the
impact categories analyzed were: Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, Eutrophication
Freshwater, Marine Eutrophication, Human Toxicity, Metal Depletion and Fossil Depletion.
The results obtained from the inventory show that the operational phase of the plant has
more impact than the construction phase in almost all categories studied. The separate
analysis of each stage of the plant indicates that the secondary treatment and pre-treatment
are those with a greater impact due to increased consumption of chemicals and high energy
consumption.
This study shows that to achieve a lower impact on the water purification process more
efficient technologies, opt for chemicals with low environmental impact and reduce the
environmental burden of energy consumption in the process need to apply
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