C-FOOT-CTRL · Developing on line tools to monitor, control and mitigate GHG emissions in WWTPs

Developing on line tools to monitor, control and mitigate GHG emissions in WWTPs

Anthropogenic activities and particularly the combustion of fossil fuels, are causing an increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Research focusing on the development of strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of different processes is valuable. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a significant anthropogenic source of GHG emissions; these include including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), with the last two causing 25 and 265 times more harm than CO2 in a 100-year period, respectively. Emissions are generated directly from various stages of a WWTP (on-site) or indirectly from the net power and chemical consumption, the treated effluent disposal and sewage sludge management. WWTPs are the biggest single energy consumers of municipalities with a share of 20% of the total energy consumption. More importantly, N2O in terms of CO2 equivalent corresponds to 7.9% of the total anthropogenic GHG emissions; the N2O production from WWTPs contributes by 3.2% to the total estimated anthropogenic N2O emissions globally. New tools are required to determine/predict the carbon footprint of WWTPs in a reliable and effective manner. Different designs and/or operational conditions can play a significant role in the production of GHG emissions causing a significant variability among the plants. Hence, there has been an increasing interest of comprehensive process and mechanistic models that estimate dynamic GHG emissions. On the other hand, modelling results are not always validated with real data and have a high degree of uncertainty. C-FOOT-CTRL will overcome these obstacles by developing an innovative software tool for online monitoring, control and mitigation of GHG emissions in WWTPs. The social impact of the project is considered to be significant since the project contributes towards the decrease of GHG emissions in WWTPs and will thus mitigate climate change. Furthermore, the application of such a tool will aid the every-day operation of WWTPs decreasing the adverse environmental impact of WWTPs and their impact to the communities. The C-FOOT-CTRL project aims to develop, test and validate a novel tool that will be able to accurately predict and record CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions during the different treatment processes of WWTPs. The development of such a tool is important since it will be able to (i) predict the occurrence of GHG emissions, (ii) track the emissions at the moment of occurrence, (iii) immediately apply measures to reduce GHG contaminants and to (iv) link the GHG emissions with a particular activity in the plant. The GHG emissions monitoring and control system will be an innovative and flexible system for monitoring and ‘supervising’ activities aiming to reduce GHG emissions during the operation of WWTPs.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз