Project Overview
Mission and Goals
Mission
Our team will develop the Enhanced Separation and Sludge Refinery (ESSR) as the core technology of next-generation wastewater treatment system for solving the nexus of water pollution control and resource recovery in the mega cities. The advanced technology will improve wastewater treatment efficiency and reduce its footprint, energy consumption and carbon emission. Moreover, the new treatment system will not only solve the sludge and food waste problems in large cities but also enable effective resource recovery for value-added products, including fertilizers, bioplastics, ethanol, hyphae-sheets and carbon fiber films. The engineering soundness of this invention will be demonstrated as a paradigm of sustainable water pollution control for Hong Kong and other cities.
Goals
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To develop a new wastewater treatment process aiming for effective and energy-saving treatment, sufficient nutrient removal and high-quality effluent;
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To create the capabilities of recovering resources and energy from municipal wastewater, achieving sludge minimization together with the production of value-added products; and
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To present an advanced urban water pollution control system with a sound integration of wastewater treatment, resource recovery and minimization of sludge and food wastes.
Program and Tasks
Program 1
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Chemically-facilitated coagulation and flocculation for enhanced organic and P removal
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Development of novel ceramic membranes for enhanced sludge-liquid separation
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Side-stream sludge & food wastes co-fermentation for organic
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Organic recovery from the supernatant for Corporate and PHA
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Residual organics utilization from co-fermented supernatant for
Chemically-enhanced ceramic membrane filtration and side-stream sludge & food wastes co-fermentation for P and organic recovery
2016.11-2018.6
Program 2
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Thermal hydrolysis of excessive sludge for organic release
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Fungal fermentation using hydrolyzed effluent as the feed
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Hypha-sheets production for carbon-fiber utilization
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Ammonium and ethanol recovery from hydrolyzed effluent
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Incineration of final excess sludge for ceramics manufacture
Thermal sludge hydrolysis and fungal fermentation for excess sludge minimization and biosynthesis and resource recovery
2017.12-2020.6
Program 3
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Integration and experiments of the new treatment process
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Pilot experiments and field demonstrations of the novel ESSR system
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Analysis of the effluent quality
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Polishing of the second effluent to improve phosphorus removal
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Impact assessment of the treated effluent for discharge
System integration and pilot experiments of the new treatment scheme, effluent analysis and impact assessment
2019.8-2021.10
IMPACTS
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The organic and P loads on the downstream biological treatment will be reduced by up to 50% and 70%, respectively, allowing at least 30% reduction in volume and operating cost;
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Fatty acids from the side-stream sludge & food waste co-fermentation will be recovered for caporate production and PHA biosynthesis;
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More than 50% organics in the waste sludge will be hydrolyzed and utilized by fungal fermentation to produce ethanol and hyphae-sheets;
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About 50% P and 40% N in wastewater can be recovered as fertilizers, and
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The sludge residues will be consolidated into ceramics, achieving almost zero waste disposal. Despite such great benefits, there is no major change required to the existing secondary wastewater treatment process.
