How to choose the best tertiary treatment for pulp and paper wastewater? Life cycle assessment and economic analysis as guidance tools

Matia Mainardis; Carmen Ferrara; Beatrice Cantoni; Camilla Di Marcantonio; Giovanni De Feo; Daniele Goi

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167598

How to choose the best tertiary treatment for pulp and paper wastewater? Life cycle assessment and economic analysis as guidance tools

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Jan 1:906:167598. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167598. Epub 2023 Oct 4.

Authors

Matia Mainardis¹, Carmen Ferrara², Beatrice Cantoni³, Camilla Di Marcantonio⁴, Giovanni De Feo², Daniele Goi⁵

Affiliations

¹ University of Udine, Polytechnic Department of Engineering and Architecture (DPIA), Via del Cotonificio 108, 33100 Udine, Italy. Electronic address: matia.mainardis@uniud.it.
² University of Salerno, Department of Industrial Engineering, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy.
³ Politecnico di Milano, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA) - Environmental Section, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy.
⁴ Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering (DICEA), Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy.
⁵ University of Udine, Polytechnic Department of Engineering and Architecture (DPIA), Via del Cotonificio 108, 33100 Udine, Italy.

PMID: 37802362
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167598

Abstract

Pulp and paper wastewater (P&P WW) often requires tertiary treatment to remove refractory compounds not eliminated by conventional biological treatment, ensuring compliance with high-quality effluent discharge or reuse standards. This study employs a life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to compare alternative tertiary treatment technologies for P&P WW and rank them accordingly. The evaluated technologies in the scenarios include inorganic (S1) and organic (S2) coagulation-flocculation, ozonation (O₃) (S3), O₃+granular activated carbon (GAC) (S4), and ultrafiltration (UF)+reverse osmosis (RO) (S5). The analysis focuses on a P&P wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Northeastern Italy. The LCA is complemented by an economic analysis considering each technology's capital and operating costs, as well as potential revenues from internal effluent reuse. Results indicate that S4 (O₃+GAC) outranks all the other scenarios in terms of both environmental performance and economic viability, primarily due to the advantages associated with effluent reuse. S5 (UF+RO), which also involves reuse, is limited by the high energy consumption of UF+RO, resulting in increased environmental impacts and costs. The physicochemical scenario S2 (Chem Or), currently utilized in the WWTP under study, remains the best-performing technology in the absence of effluent reuse. In contrast, S3 (O₃ alone) exhibits the poorest environmental and economic outcomes due to substantial energy requirements for O₃ generation and the inability to reuse the treated effluent directly. Lastly, a sensitivity analysis underscores the strong influence of chemical dosages in S1 and S2 on environmental and economic impacts, which is more significant than the impact of water reuse percentages in S4 and S5. The high electricity cost observed during 2022 negatively affects the energy-intensive scenarios (S3-S5), making coagulation-flocculation (S1-S2) even more convenient.

Keywords: Granular activated carbon; Industrial wastewater; LCA; Ozonation; Reverse osmosis; Ultrafiltration.