Environmental, energy, and economic impact assessment of sludge management alternatives based on incineration

作者：Xiao, Huaping; Li, Kai; Zhang, Dongqing^*; Tang, Zhihua^*; Niu, Xiaojun; Yi, Linzi; Lin, Zhang; Fu, Mingli

来源：Journal of Environmental Management, 2022, 321: 115848.

DOI：10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115848

• Sewage sludge
• Life cycle assessment
• Energy demand
• Economic performance

In this study, different management strategies for sewage sludge disposal were evaluated associated with environmental, energy, and economic impact, using life cycle assessment (LCA), cumulative energy demand (CED) and life cycle costing (LCC) approaches. Four scenarios, including mono-incineration, co-incineration in municipal solid wastes (MSW) incineration plant, co-incineration in coal-fired power plant and co-incineration in cement kiln, were assessed. The environmental burdens generated from the sludge incineration contributed primarily to the global warming, followed by eutrophication, marine aquatic ecotoxicity, and human toxicity potential across the four scenarios. Furthermore, mono-incineration scenario appeared to be the most environ-mentally unfriendly, energy and economy intensive alternative, with the LCA, CED and LCC value of 5.41E-09, 1736 MJ and 1.84 million CNY, respectively. By contrast, co-incineration in cement kiln exhibited the lowest CED (368 MJ), LCC (0.59 million CNY), and environmental burdens (1.02E-09). In addition, the sensitivity analysis indicated that four scenarios were sensitive to the changes in the electricity efficiency and the moisture content contained in sewage sludge, suggesting that it was of great significance to enhance the efficiency of sludge dewatering and thermal drying The findings of this study can provide scientific reference for selecting the optimal strategies for the most environmentally and economically friendly sewage sludge management with optimum energy efficiency.

• 单位
  中国科学院; 中国科学院广州能源研究所; 茂名学院