Physico-chemical and biological treatment strategies for converting municipal wastewater and its residue to resources

• Published in: Chemosphere (Oxford) 2021-11, Vol.282, p.130881, Article 130881
• Main Authors: Patel, Asfak, Arkatkar, Ambika, Singh, Srishti, Rabbani, Alija, Solorza Medina, Juan David, Ong, Ee Shen, Habashy, Mahmoud M., Jadhav, Dipak A., Rene, Eldon R., Mungray, Alka A., Mungray, Arvind Kumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Economic benefits; Membrane separation; Resource recovery; Sewage; Treatment technologies; Waste Disposal, Fluid; Waste Water; Wastewater
• ISSN: 0045-6535; 1879-1298
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130881

An increase in urbanization and industrialization has not only contributed to an improvement in the lifestyle of people, but it has also contributed to a surge in the generation of wastewater. To date, conventional physico-chemical and biological treatment methods are widely used for the treatment of wastewater. However, the efficient operation of these systems require substantial operation and maintenance costs, and the application of novel technologies for the treatment and disposal of sludge/residues. This review paper focuses on the application of different treatment options such as chemical, catalyst-based, thermochemical and biological processes for wastewater or sludge treatment and membrane-based technologies (i.e. pressure-driven and non-pressure driven) for the separation of the recovered products from wastewater and its residues. As evident from the literature, a wide variety of treatment and resource recovery options are possible, both from wastewater and its residues; however, the lack of planning and selecting the most appropriate design (treatment train) to scale up from pilot to the field scale has limited its practical application. The economic feasibility of the selected technologies was critically analyzed and the future research prospects of resource recovery from wastewater have been outlined in this review. [Display omitted] •Resource recovery technologies for treating wastewater and residues are summarized.•Membrane based technologies are widely used to recover “water for reuse”.•Thermochemical technology provides multiple by-products from a single feedstock.•Biological technologies have been successfully implemented at the industrial scale.