Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Wastewater Treatment Plants on a Plantwide Scale: Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 6
Abstract
This paper presents the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of a mathematical model for greenhouse gas emission (GHG) and energy consumption assessment in wastewater treatment plants. A sensitivity analysis was carried out (using two different methods) to determine which model factors have the greatest effect on the predicted values of the GHG production. Further, an uncertainty analysis was carried out to quantify the uncertainty of the key model outputs, such as carbon dioxide production from activated sludge treatment. The results show that influent fractionation factors, which characterize influent composition, have an important role on direct and indirect GHGs production and emission. Moreover, model factors related to the aerobic biomass growth show a relevant influence on GHGs in terms of emission from off-site power generation (). Further, model factors related to the autotrophic biomass growth were found to strongly interact with other factors especially in modeling . Finally, nitrous oxide () emission associated with the effluent has the highest uncertainty, suggesting the need for a mechanistic model for production in biological treatment.
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Acknowledgments
This work forms a part of a research project supported by grant of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) through the Research Project of National Interest PRIN2012 (D.M. 28 dicembre 2012 n. 957/Ric—Prot. 2012PTZAMC) entitled “Energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the wastewater treatment plants: A decision support system for planning and management” in which the corresponding author is the principal investigator (http://ghgfromwwtp.unipa.it).
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 6 • June 2016
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 14, 2015
Accepted: Oct 28, 2015
Published online: Jan 27, 2016
Published in print: Jun 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Jun 27, 2016
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