| Title |
Precious Data from Tiny Samples: Revealing the Correlation Between Energy Content and the Chemical Oxygen Demand of Municipal Wastewater by Micro-Bomb Combustion Calorimetry |
| ID_Doc |
24606 |
| Authors |
Korth, B; Heber, C; Normant-Saremba, M; Maskow, T; Harnisch, F |
| Title |
Precious Data from Tiny Samples: Revealing the Correlation Between Energy Content and the Chemical Oxygen Demand of Municipal Wastewater by Micro-Bomb Combustion Calorimetry |
| Year |
2021 |
| Published |
|
| DOI |
10.3389/fenrg.2021.705800 |
| Abstract |
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are aimed to be transformed from sinks into sources of energy and material. For fostering corresponding engineering efforts and economic assessments, comprehensive knowledge of the energy content of wastewater is required. We show in this proof-of-concept study that these data can be gathered by combining micro-bomb combustion calorimetry with freeze-drying. Thereby, the methodology for measuring the combustion enthalpy (Delta H-c ) of wastewater is significantly improved by decreasing the time demand for the drying process as only tiny amounts of samples are required. Here, the effluent of the primary clarifier of a wastewater treatment plant treating low-strength municipal wastewater was sampled on a weekly basis for 1 year, yielding 53 composite samples that were analyzed for Delta H-c and standard wastewater parameters. A robust correlation between the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and Delta H-c of -14.9 +/- 3.5 kJ gCOD(-1) (r = 0.51) was determined, verifying previous results obtained with more laborious and time-demanding methodologies. The global chemical energy potential of the sampled WWTP is presumably higher as the first treatment steps and losses during sample preparation reduced the amount of energy-rich compounds. A stronger correlation was observed between Delta H-c and the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5, r = 0.64), suggesting its usage for predicting the potential of wastewater as feedstock for biotechnological applications. This demonstrates that micro-bomb combustion calorimetry can be applied for deriving precious information on the energy content of wastewater from simple COD measurements. |
| Author Keywords |
combustion calorimetry; wastewater; chemical oxygen demand; energy; circular economy |
| Index Keywords |
Index Keywords |
| Document Type |
Other |
| Open Access |
Open Access |
| Source |
Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) |
| EID |
WOS:000674353000001 |
| WoS Category |
Energy & Fuels |
| Research Area |
Energy & Fuels |
| PDF |
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