Integrative approach for wastewater treatment facilities with biomass transformation into energy

• Main Authors: Anker Yaakov, Mualem David, Langstadter Hagai, Nakonechny Faina, Nisnevitch Marina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2017-01-01
• Series: Renewable Energy and Environmental Sustainability
• Online Access: https://www.rees-journal.org/articles/rees/full_html/2017/01/rees170003s/rees170003s.html

Current industrial environmental regulations favor processes with Integrative Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). While several systems are regarded by different international directives as IPPC Best Available Techniques or Technologies (BAT), none of these systems are capable handling various pollutants of both gaseous and aquatic effluents. Additional hinder to a BAT-IPPC complete procedure are hazardous or uneconomical byproducts of the IPPC processes and significant auxiliary costs for consumables and energy. The current research and subsequent projects are aimed to the development of a Biological Integrative Pollution Prevention and Control (Bio-IPPC) system. Such system can be incorporated in various industrial processes, in a way that the byproduct is without hazardous potential and may be used as an economical raw material. The main initiative and heart of these systems is a micro-algae reactor, which is capable of treating various types of industrial pollutants both in the gaseous and aquatic phases. The algae nutrition is through thin-film circulation of the aquatic effluent and the reactor atmosphere is enriched by flue gases. The excessive algal biomass may be utilized for economic purposes starting with animal feedstock, through organic fertilizer and as industrial raw material for biofuels production or direct energy production. The first industrial project is a wastewater (WW) polishing stage to an industry zone WW treatment facility, which ensures high level effluent purification and assimilation of greenhouse gases, which are released during the WW bioremediation process. The second industrial application aims to treat aquatic and gaseous effluents from coal propelled power plants. The raw algal material from both projects although very different, is used for the development of new efficient scheme for bioethanol production. In summary, the system presented is an actual Bio-IPPC that can interactively treat several industrial effluents, while utilizing the algal biomass as a profitable raw material.