Evolution and Prospects in Managing Sewage Sludge Resulting from Municipal Wastewater Purification

Gabriele Di Giacomo and Pietro Romano
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Gabriele Di Giacomo: Independent Researcher of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Via Gabriele D’Annunzio n. 327, 64025 Pineto, TE, Italy
Pietro Romano: Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and of Economics (DIIIE), Engineering Headquarters of Roio, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, AQ, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-33

Abstract: Municipal sewage sludge is the residual material produced as a waste of municipal wastewater purification. It is a sophisticated multi-component material, hard to handle. For many years, it has been landfilled, incinerated, and widely used in agriculture practice. When unproperly discharged, it is very polluting and unhealthy. The rapidly increasing global amount of municipal sewage sludge produced annually depends on urbanization, degree of development, and lifestyle. Some diffused traditional practices were banned or became economically unfeasible or unacceptable by the communities. In contrast, it has been established that MSS contains valuable resources, which can be utilized as energy and fertilizer. The objective of the review was to prove that resource recovery is beneficially affordable using modern approaches and proper technologies and to estimate the required resources and time. The open sources of information were deeply mined, critically examined, and selected to derive the necessary information regarding each network segment, from the source to the final point, where the municipal sewage sludge is produced and disposed of. We found that developed and some developing countries are involved with ambitious and costly plans for remediation, the modernization of regulations, collecting and purification systems, and beneficial waste management using a modern approach. We also found that the activated sludge process is the leading technology for wastewater purification, and anaerobic digestion is the leading technology for downstream waste. However, biological technologies appear inadequate and hydrothermal carbonization, already applicable at full scale, is the best candidate for playing a significant role in managing municipal sewage sludge produced by big towns and small villages.

Keywords: municipal wastewater; sewage sludge; sewers systems; urbanization; purification technologies; disposal technologies; biosolids; waste-to-energy; biorefinery (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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