Environmental and economic assessment of advanced oxidation for the treatment of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine wastewater from a life cycle perspective

Yuxi Chai; Xiaofei Chen; Yihuan Wang; Xiaoyan Guo; Rongyue Zhang; Huangzhao Wei; Haibo Jin; Zhiwei Li; Lei Ma

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162264

Environmental and economic assessment of advanced oxidation for the treatment of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine wastewater from a life cycle perspective

Sci Total Environ. 2023 May 15:873:162264. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162264. Epub 2023 Feb 24.

Authors

Yuxi Chai¹, Xiaofei Chen², Yihuan Wang³, Xiaoyan Guo¹, Rongyue Zhang¹, Huangzhao Wei³, Haibo Jin¹, Zhiwei Li⁴, Lei Ma⁵

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Key Laboratory of Fuels Cleaning and Advanced Catalytic Emission Reduction Technology/College of New Materials and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology, Beijing 102617, China.
² Chen Ping Laboratory of TIANS Engineering Technology Group Co., Ltd., Shijiazhuang 050000, Hebei, China.
³ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, China.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, Anhui, China. Electronic address: zhiwei.li@hfut.edu.cn.
⁵ Beijing Key Laboratory of Fuels Cleaning and Advanced Catalytic Emission Reduction Technology/College of New Materials and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology, Beijing 102617, China. Electronic address: malei@bipt.edu.cn.

PMID: 36842596
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162264

Abstract

As a high-performance liquid rocket fuel, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) will produce wastewater during transportation, storage and cleaning containers. The wastewater will have a bad impact on human health and ecological environment, and it must be properly handled. There are many reports about the technical feasibility of UDMH wastewater treatment. Less attention is paid to analyzing the impact on the environment during the treatment process. This paper quantifies the environmental impacts and economic benefits of four advanced oxidation processes for the treatment of UDMH wastewater based on life cycle assessment and life cycle costing methods. Taking the UDMH wastewater produced by an aerospace group of Tianjin, China as the research object, using Fenton method, UV-Fenton method, electro catalytic oxidation (EC) with ruthenium iridium titanium (Ti/TiO₂-RuO₂-IrO₂) as electrode and electro catalytic oxidation with boron-doped diamond (BDD) as electrode as treatment methods, on the basis of the laboratory test, the industrialized device is adopted. The resource consumption, energy consumption, pollutant discharge and cost were compared when the TOC removal rate was the same, and a better method of treating unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine wastewater was discussed. The results show that the impact on most types of environments is as follows: UV-Fenton < Fenton < EC (BDD) < EC (Ti/TiO₂-RuO₂-IrO₂), and the four advanced oxidation methods are all beneficial to reduce eutrophication. The life cycle cost of UV-Fenton is the lowest (US$1.53/m³). Combined with environmental and economic analysis, it can be seen that UV-Fenton is the best choice. Through sensitivity analysis, it can be seen that reducing chemical reagents and electricity consumption, and changing the way of generating electricity to renewable energy can significantly reduce the environmental and economic impact. The life cycle cost of EC(BDD) as the electrode is the highest (US$26.20/m³), but it can achieve a TOC removal rate of 97.75 %, so it is a better choice when only the removal rate is required regardless of cost.

Keywords: Electrocatalytic oxidation; Fenton; LCA; LCC; UDMH wastewater; UV-Fenton.