Exploring Avoided Environmental Impacts as Well as Energy and Resource Recovery from Microbial Desalination Cell Treatment of Brine

Rosa Anna Nastro, Enrica Leccisi, Maria Toscanesi, Gengyuan Liu, Marco Trifuoggi and Sergio Ulgiati
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Rosa Anna Nastro: Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, 80143 Naples, Italy
Enrica Leccisi: Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, 80143 Naples, Italy
Maria Toscanesi: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy
Gengyuan Liu: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Marco Trifuoggi: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy
Sergio Ulgiati: Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, 80143 Naples, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-16

Abstract: Seawater represents a potential resource to ensure sustainable availability of water for population and irrigation purposes, especially in some areas of the world. Desalination processes allow the production of fresh water, but they generate also brine as waste product. Sustainable brine management should be identified to ensure proper disposal and potentially resource recovery. This experimental study showed that emerging technologies such as Microbial Desalination Cells (MDCs) may provide a valuable contribution to the sustainability of the seawater desalination sector. In this paper, we report results on lab-scale desalination brine treatments applying MDCs, which allow energy savings, resource recovery, environmental impact minimization, and reduction of the organic load in municipal wastewater. Our results showed that MDCs’ treatment allows the removal of approximately 33 g of salts (62% of the total)—including chlorides, bromides, and sulphates—from 20 mL of brine within 96 h. The MDCs, according to the source of energy and the presence of mature biofilm at the anode, spent 7.2 J, 7.9 J, and 9.6 J in the desalination process, with the higher amount of energy required by the abiotic system and the lesser by the MDCs fed with just wastewater. Our approach also showed environmental and energy reductions because of potential metal recovery instead of returning them into marine environment. We quantified the avoided life cycle of human and marine eco-toxicity impacts as well as the reduction of cumulative energy demand of recovered metals. The main benefit in terms of avoided toxicity would arise from the mercury and copper recovery, while potential economic advantages would derive from the recovered cobalt that represents a strategic resource for many products such as battery storage systems.

Keywords: brine treatment; wastewater treatment; metals; resource recovery; energy reduction; life-cycle analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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