Open AccessENVIRONMENTAL EXERGY ANALYSIS OF WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS
Author(s) -
Carlos Benito Mora,
Silvio de Oliveira
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
revista de engenharia térmica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1676-1790
DOI - 10.5380/reterm.v5i2.61848
Subject(s) - exergy , environmental science , environmental engineering , exergy efficiency , environmental impact assessment , environmental pollution , work (physics) , wastewater , sewage treatment , pollution , metropolitan area , waste management , environmental protection , engineering , ecology , geography , mechanical engineering , biology , archaeology
This work evaluates the environmental impact of Wastewater Treatment Plants (WTP) based on data generated by the exergy analysis, calculating and applying environmental impact indexes for two WTP located in the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo. The environmental impact of the waste water treatment plants was done by means of evaluating two environmental impact exergy based indexes: the environmental exergy efficiency (ηenv,exerg) and the total pollution rate (Rpol,t). The environmental exergy efficiency is defined as the ratio of the exergy of the useful effect of the WTP to the total exergy consumed by human and natural resources, including all the exergy inputs. That relation is an indication of the theoretical potential of future improvements of the process. Besides the environmental exergy efficiency, it is also used the total pollution rate, based on the definition done by Makarytchev (1997), as the ratio of the destroyed exergy associated to the process wastes to the exergy of the useful effect of the process. The analysis of the results shows that this method can be used to quantify and also optimise the environmental performance of Wastewater Treatment Plants.
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