Life Cycle Assessment of a Domestic Wastewater Treatment Plant Simulated with Alternative Operational Designs

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool to evaluate the environmental impacts of domestic wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) operations. It involves a thorough evaluation of the main characteristics or components of the environment, human health, and resources. However, the literature to date is still lacking analysis on the widely varied designs and operational conditions of full-scale WWTPs. The aim here was to integrate analyses such as LCA, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and energy consumption, when considering the environmental impacts of a full-scale WWTP, which can provide practical outputs to aid decision-making on optimum designs and operational conditions. The Russtmiya domestic WWTP, located in Iraq, was considered as the case study. Three operational alternatives were proposed as solutions to improve the WWTP's performance, as follows: (1) conventional activated sludge with sand filter (CAS), (2) conventional activated sludge with sand filter and nitrogen removal (CAS-N), and (3) membrane bioreactor (MBR). The operation of such alternatives was investigated through modeling and simulation using GPS-X 8.0.1 software. The energy consumption of each alternative was estimated via GPS-X, while the GHG emissions were estimated using three different methods according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and GPS-X software. The OpenLCA software (1.10.3) was used to measure all impact categories at both the midpoint and endpoint levels using various methods. As a conclusion, comparing the three proposed alternatives indicated that: (1) the MBR alternative provided the lowest energy consumption and moderate GHG emissions, and (2) the CAS alternative provided the best environmental performance, particularly in aspects such as ozone depletion, global warming, and climate change, where the lowest GHGs emission values had the major contribution.