▶ Addresses a wide range of timely environment, economic and energy topics ▶ A forum to review, analyze and stimulate the development, testing and implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies at regional, national and global scales ▶ Contributes to real-time policy analysis and development as national and international policies and agreements are discussed and promulgated ▶ 94% of authors who answered a survey reported that they would definitely publish or probably publish in the journal again

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change

This paper presents a review of the turn of events and points of view of biogas in and its utilization for power, heat and in transport in the European Union (EU) and its Member States. Biogas creation has expanded in the EU, empowered by the sustainable power strategies, notwithstanding monetary, ecological and atmosphere benefits, to arrive at 18 billion m3 methane (654 PJ) in 2015, speaking to half of the worldwide biogas creation. The EU is the world chief in biogas power creation, with more than 10 GW introduced and various 17,400 biogas plants, in contrast with the worldwide biogas limit of 15 GW in 2015. In the EU, biogas conveyed 127 TJ of warmth and 61 TWh of power in 2015; about half of absolute biogas utilization in Europe was bound to warm age. Europe is the world's driving maker of biomethane for the utilization as a vehicle fuel or for infusion into the petroleum gas network, with 459 plants in 2015 creating 1.2 billion m3 and 340 plants taking care of into the gas network, with a limit of 1.5 million m3. Around 697 biomethane filling stations guaranteed the utilization 160 million m3 of biomethane as a transport fuel in 2015.

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/biogas-developments-and-perspectives-in-europe.pdf

Biogas Developments and Perspectives in Europe

Antibiotics, the most frequently prescribed drugs of modern medicine, are extensively used for both human and veterinary applications. Antibiotics from different wastewater sources (e.g., municipal, hospitals, animal production, and pharmaceutical industries) ultimately are discharged into wastewater treatment plants. Sorption and biodegradation are the two major removal pathways of antibiotics during biological wastewater treatment processes. This review provides the fundamental insights into sorption mechanisms and biodegradation pathways of different classes of antibiotics with diverse physical-chemical attributes. Important factors affecting sorption and biodegradation behavior of antibiotics are also highlighted. Furthermore, this review also sheds light on the critical role of extracellular polymeric substances on antibiotics adsorption and their removal in engineered biological wastewater treatment systems. Despite major advancements, engineered biological wastewater treatment systems are only moderately effective (48-77%) in the removal of antibiotics. In this review, we systematically summarize the behavior and removal of different antibiotics in various biological treatment systems with discussion on their removal efficiency, removal mechanisms, critical bioreactor operating conditions affecting antibiotics removal, and recent innovative advancements. Besides, relevant background information including antibiotics classification, physical-chemical properties, and their occurrence in the environment from different sources is also briefly covered. This review aims to advance our understanding of the fate of various classes of antibiotics in engineered biological wastewater treatment systems and outlines future research directions.

Insights into the Fate and Removal of Antibiotics in Engineered Biological Treatment Systems: A Critical Review

Research into alternative renewable energy generation is a priority, due to the ever-increasing concern of climate change. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are one potential avenue to be explored, as a partial solution towards combating the over-reliance on fossil fuel based electricity. Limitations have slowed the advancement of MFC development, including low power generation, expensive electrode materials and the inability to scale up MFCs to industrially relevant capacities. However, utilisation of new advanced electrode-materials (i.e. 2D nanomaterials), has promise to advance the field of electromicrobiology. New electrode materials coupled with a more thorough understanding of the mechanisms in which electrogenic bacteria partake in electron transfer could dramatically increase power outputs, potentially reaching the upper extremities of theoretical limits. Continued research into both the electrochemistry and microbiology is of paramount importance in order to achieve industrial-scale development of MFCs. This review gives an overview of the current field and knowledge in regards to MFCs and discusses the known mechanisms underpinning MFC technology, which allows bacteria to facilitate in electron transfer processes. This review focusses specifically on enhancing the performance of MFCs, with the key intrinsic factor currently limiting power output from MFCs being the rate of electron transfer to/from the anode; the use of advanced carbon-based materials as electrode surfaces is discussed.

/pdf/microbial-fuel-cells-an-overview-of-current-technology-25y9lplmsd.pdf

Microbial fuel cells: An overview of current technology

Global evaluation of heavy metal content in surface water bodies: A meta-analysis using heavy metal pollution indices and multivariate statistical analyses

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for every organism on the Earth, yet it is also a potential environmental pollutant, which may cause eutrophication of water bodies. Wastewater treatment plants worldwide are struggling to eliminate phosphorus from effluents, at great cost, yet current research suggests that the world may deplete the more available phosphorus reserves by around 2300. This, in addition to environmental concerns, evokes the need for new phosphorus recovery techniques to be developed, to meet future generations needs for renewable phosphorus supply. Many studies have been, and are, carried out on phosphorus recovery from wastewater and its sludge, due to their high phosphorus content. Chemical precipitation is the main process for achieving a phosphorus-containing mineral suitable for reuse as a fertilizer, such as struvite. This paper reviews the current status and future trends of phosphorus production and consumption, and summarizes current recovery technologies, discussing their possible integration into wastewater treatment processes, according to a more sustainable water-energy-nutrient nexus.

/pdf/the-potential-phosphorus-crisis-resource-conservation-and-1kxg7u2ljo.pdf

The Potential Phosphorus Crisis: Resource Conservation and Possible Escape Technologies: A Review

Fossil fuel continued overuse and carbon emissions issues have prompted increased research efforts on sustainable and renewable energy sources as alternative to fossil fuels. Biofuels include produ...

Production technologies, current role, and future prospects of biofuels feedstocks: A state-of-the-art review

Urban water systems and, in particular, wastewater treatment facilities are among the major energy consumers at municipal level worldwide. Estimates indicate that on average these facilities alone may require about 1% to 3% of the total electric energy output of a country, representing a significant fraction of municipal energy bills. Specific power consumption of state-of-the-art facilities should range between 20 and 45 kWh per population-equivalent served, per year, even though older plants may have even higher demands. This figure does not include wastewater conveyance (pumping) and residues post-processing. On the other hand, wastewater and its byproducts contain energy in different forms: chemical, thermal and potential. Until very recently, the only form of energy recovery from most facilities consisted of anaerobic post-digestion of process residuals (waste sludge), by which chemical energy methane is obtained as biogas, in amounts generally sufficient to cover about half of plant requirements. Implementation of new technologies may allow more efficient strategies of energy savings and recovery from sewage treatment. Besides wastewater valorization by exploitation of its chemical and thermal energy contents, closure of the wastewater cycle by recovery of the energy content of process residuals could allow significant additional energy recovery and increased greenhouse emissions abatement.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/266/pdf

Energy Issues in Sustainable Urban Wastewater Management: Use, Demand Reduction and Recovery in the Urban Water Cycle

Reliable performance evaluation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can be done by simulating the plant behavior over a wide range of influent disturbances, including series of rain events with different intensity and duration, seasonal temperature variations, holiday effects, etc. Such simulation-based WWTP performance evaluations are in practice limited by the long simulation time of the mechanistic WWTP models. By moderate simplification (avoiding big losses in prediction accuracy) of the mechanistic WWTP model only a limited reduction of the simulation time can be achieved. The approach proposed in this paper combines an influent disturbance generator with a mechanistic WWTP model for generating a limited sequence of training data (4months of dynamic data). An artificial neural network (ANN) is then trained on the available WWTP input-output data, and is subsequently used to simulate the remainder of the influent time series (20years of dynamic data) generated with the influent disturbance generator. It is demonstrated that the ANN reduces simulation time by a factor of 36, even when including the time needed for the generation of training data and for ANN training. For repeated integrated urban wastewater system simulations that do not require repeated training of the ANN, the ANN reduces simulation time by a factor of 1300 compared to the mechanistic model. ANN prediction of effluent ammonium, BOD"5 and total suspended solids was good when compared to mechanistic WWTP model predictions, whereas prediction of effluent COD and total nitrogen concentrations was a bit less satisfactory. With correlation coefficients R^2>0.95 and prediction errors lower than 10%, the accuracy of the ANN is sufficient for applications in simulation-based WWTP design and simulation of integrated urban wastewater systems, especially when taking into account the uncertainties related to mechanistic WWTP modeling.

Artificial neural networks for rapid WWTP performance evaluation: Methodology and case study

Collection and treatment of wastewater have a huge impact on the environment and economy, both at the local and global levels. Eco-innovation may play a paramount role in the reduction of the environmental impact of such systems, and in their greater sustainability in economic, environmental, and social terms. Decentralization appears as a logical solution to tackle sustainability problems of wastewater management systems, as it focuses on the on-site treatment of wastewater and on local recycling and reuse of resources contained in domestic wastewater (in primus, water itself). This paper analyses the needs, technological options and contribution to water management of decentralized systems. Decentralized solutions in general will tend to be compatible with local water use and reuse requirements, where locally treated water could support agricultural productivity or (in more urban areas) be used as a substitute for drinking-quality supply water for compatible uses. In analyzing sustainability of technology, different dimensions should be taken into account (in particular, local issues). There is no fixed or universal solution to the technological issue; to the contrary, all relevant studies demonstrated there are varying degrees of sustainability in the way a technology is selected and operated, to avoid exporting problems over time or space.

Andrea G. Capodaglio

Papers

The Potential Phosphorus Crisis: Resource Conservation and Possible Escape Technologies: A Review

Production technologies, current role, and future prospects of biofuels feedstocks: A state-of-the-art review

Energy Issues in Sustainable Urban Wastewater Management: Use, Demand Reduction and Recovery in the Urban Water Cycle

Artificial neural networks for rapid WWTP performance evaluation: Methodology and case study

Integrated, Decentralized Wastewater Management for Resource Recovery in Rural and Peri-Urban Areas