title: Greenhouse gases from wastewater treatment - A review of modelling tools.
abstract: Nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted from wastewater treatment that contribute to its carbon footprint. As a result of the increasing awareness of GHG emissions from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), new modelling, design, and operational tools have been developed to address and reduce GHG emissions at the plant-wide scale and beyond. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art and the recently developed tools used to understand and manage GHG emissions from WWTPs, and discusses open problems and research gaps. The literature review reveals that knowledge on the processes related to N2O formation, especially due to autotrophic biomass, is still incomplete. The literature review shows also that a plant-wide modelling approach that includes GHG is the best option for the understanding how to reduce the carbon footprint of WWTPs. Indeed, several studies have confirmed that a wide vision of the WWPTs has to be considered in order to make them more sustainable as possible. Mechanistic dynamic models were demonstrated as the most comprehensive and reliable tools for GHG assessment. Very few plant-wide GHG modelling studies have been applied to real WWTPs due to the huge difficulties related to data availability and the model complexity. For further improvement in GHG plant-wide modelling and to favour its use at large real scale, knowledge of the mechanisms involved in GHG formation and release, and data acquisition must be enhanced.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, Aerospaziale, dei Materiali, Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90100 Palermo, Italy. Electronic address: giorgio.mannina@unipa.it.
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mannina
authors.affiliation: Water Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700 Cape, South Africa.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ekama
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering and Physics of the Environment, University of Basilicata, viale dell'Ateneo Lucano 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Donatella
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Caniani
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, Aerospaziale, dei Materiali, Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90100 Palermo, Italy.
authors.forename: Alida
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cosenza
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and the Southern Lazio, Via Di Biasio, 43, 03043 Cassino, FR, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Florence, Via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gori
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2175, USA.
authors.forename: Manel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garrido-Baserba
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2175, USA; Water-Energy Nexus Center, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2175, USA.
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rosso
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Electrical Engineering and Automation (IEA), Lund University, Box 118, SE-22100 Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Gustaf
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Olsson
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D008697:Methane / Q000032:analysis; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009609:Nitrous Oxide / Q000032:analysis; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D008697:Methane; D009609:Nitrous Oxide; D062065:Wastewater
keywords: Carbon footprint; Denitrification; Emission; Greenhouse gas; Methane; Nitrification; Nitrous oxide; Wastewater