No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Water Footprint and Water Pinch Analysis Techniques for Sustainable Water Management in the Brick-Manufacturing Industry
Abstract
Brick-manufacturing is an intensive water-consuming industry that requires a sustainable and integrated water management strategy to reduce reliance on freshwater consumption. This study aims to develop a rigorous analytical tool based on water footprint principles and water pinch analysis techniques that can be used to manage and optimise water consumption. By performing thorough water audits, the water consumption footprint (the sum of blue and green water footprints) and the theoretical water pollution footprint (grey water footprint) were quantified. The total water consumption footprint of a brick is determined as 2.02 L, of which blue water is identified as 1.71 L (84.8%) and green water as 0.31 L (15.2%). The theoretical grey water footprint of a brick was found to be 1.3 L, a value that would have been higher if in-situ wastewater treatment had not been operated before effluent discharge. In order to reduce the water footprint of a brick, water pinch analysis techniques were applied for the brick-manufacturing processes. Two water recovery schemes were explored, i.e. direct re-use/recycle and water regeneration. For the former, water targeting was first carried out using the material recovery pinch diagram. Next, an algebraic technique was utilised for the targeting of water regeneration, where an interception unit is used to partially purify the water sources for further re-use/recycle. The network that fulfils the water flow rate targets was then designed using the nearest neighbour algorithm. The calculation indicates that direct re-use/recycle scheme reduces with the standard water consumption footprint reduced only by 15.6%. Water regeneration scheme, on the other hand improved the current value (which relies on an unsystematic water regeneration scheme) by 56.4%. The analysis clearly shows that the water consumption footprint of a brick is improved when the brick-manufacturing industry operates sustainable water management strategies. This study, a first of its kind, demonstrates that integration of water pinch analysis coupled with water footprint concepts, provides a robust and effective tool for the manufacturing industries that aim for sustainable water consumption.
... (Smith et al., 2018) The research results highlight the importance of carrying out awarenessraising work and providing information about water reuse, thus breaking down barriers that the population may have to water reuse. (Skouteris et al., 2018) A survey was carried out in a brick factory, in which water recovery schemes were explored in production (water reuse and regeneration). In both schemes, there was a decrease in water consumption for the manufacture of bricks. ...
... In a manufacturing context, but specifically in the manufacture of bricks, it was studied, which used the reuse and regeneration of water, which was possible to reduce the total consumption of water for the manufacture of bricks (Skouteris et al., 2018). ...
... (ix) The proposal presented by Skouteris et al. (2018) directs attention to sustainable consumption strategies in brick manufacture. It was possible to produce bricks with little water, which is a path several manufacturers should direct their eyes. ...
The concern over water is due to the increase in population, which has led to an increase in water consumption. Given the context of water scarcity, it is necessary to direct efforts towards preventing this occurrence. One way to meet demand is through technology for water reuse. In this sense, the research proposal was to conduct a systematic and integrative review of the literature on technology transfer related to water, with a focus on water reuse. A total of 33 articles on the subject were selected. The main findings were that research is focused on promoting water reuse and addressing concerns about water consumption. The research highlights the importance of public policies related to water consumption and reuse, as well as the need to understand the population's awareness and acceptance of such aspects. One alternative to meet the water scarcity crisis is through desalination, but progress is needed to overcome the barrier of high energy consumption and waste generation. Regarding technology transfer, sharing knowledge on a global level is necessary for effective technology transfer and satisfactory results.
... The generated effluents are rich in organic compounds, such as fats, protein, lipids, and have a high "biochemical oxygen demand/chemical oxygen demand" (BOD/COD) values, which present a high pollution potential (e.g., eutrophication of water bodies) if released into the surroundings without proper treatment [3]. Notwithstanding, the background of the lower availability of water for use in production processes, combined with the increasingly strict legislations regarding the release of effluents into water bodies, has encouraged the industrial sector to develop better water management practices [4,5]. In this context, wastewater treatment and reuse routes appear to be an option for minimizing freshwater usage and effluent generation in the industry [6]. ...
... The technique consists of two stages: (1) determination of the minimum fresh water and wastewater flow rates needed for a process based on the mass balance principle; and (2) design of the network to achieve the minimum flow rate targets [15]. In this context, it is worth pointing out three important concepts: (i) reuse-the water applied in a specific process is reutilized in a different process; (ii) recycle-the water applied in a process is partially or completely recycled to the same process; and (iii) regeneration-water sources are totally or partially treated to improve its quality before they are directed for reuse/recycle schemes [4]. ...
... To date, various water pinch analysis techniques have been developed and applied for improving the water management in industries [4,5,[16][17][18]. However, there are no comprehensive studies focusing on understanding the correlation between water treatment efficiencies and water reuse opportunities in the dairy industry, to create the best reuse route. ...
The main goal of this study is to evaluate possible reuse routes of effluents from adairy plant. First, the water flow in the plant was evaluated. All water consumed and effluents generated by the industrial process were quantified and characterized. In addition, the water quality parameters required for different industrial activities were assessed. Secondly, a treatment system using a membrane bioreactor and a nanofiltration reactor, from a study previously conducted by the authors, was considered. Then, a water pinch analysis was carried out through the application of the collected data using the Water Pinch software. Both direct reuse/recycle and regeneration schemes were investigated. In this context, although the direct reuse/recycle of effluents were shown to be able to reduce the freshwater use for the clean-in-place process (CIP) by 33.4%; the schemes with the regeneration of the effluents showed up to 66.7% and 95.4% of freshwater reduction for the CIP and general processes, respectively. Finally, four water reuse routes were proposed. The proposed route combining the most advanced treatment technologies studied showed the best performance in terms of reduction of the total freshwater consumption (69.5%) in the dairy plant.
... WPA has been successfully applied in different industrial sectors like sugar industries [2,12,13], oil refineries [10,[14][15][16], brick manufacturing industry [17] and others to come up with water reduction and reuse strategies. It uses either single contaminant approach [14], or multiple (two or three) contaminant approach [18] that depends on mass transfer of the contaminants [10]. ...
... Various approaches and techniques have been applied to carry out WPA that includes graphical approach [14,20,21], mathematical programming [11,[22][23][24], software based [2,12] and others [15,17,25]. ...
... Xiao and Cai [21] conducted a research on coal industry considering chemical oxygen demand (COD) for the single contaminant approach using graphical method and achieved 21.88% freshwater reduction. Similarly, another research was conducted on brick manufacturing plant by taking total suspended solids (TSS) as limiting contaminant through algebraic technique of WPA and it resulted 15.6% and 56.4% freshwater reduction for direct reuse and water regeneration scheme, respectively [17]. These studies directly targeted one contaminant without considering other contaminants. ...
Textile sector consumes huge amount of water in water intensive operations including bleaching, dyeing, and finishing. In this study, water pinch analysis (WPA) was applied on a textile industry using multiple contaminant analysis, to minimize the freshwater consumption and wastewater generation. Water design software was used for comprehensive evaluation of direct reuse and regeneration recycle options, for all wet streams of the industry. Three contaminants including total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) were selected for WPA, contrary to single contaminant approach in the past studies.
After applying WPA (direct reuse) one by one for each contaminant, freshwater reduction of 56.5% for TDS, 58.6% for TH and 32.8% for COD was achieved. COD is the most sensitive parameter as it gives minimum freshwater reduction, and hence was selected as a key/limiting contaminant. For regeneration recycle option, selecting moving bed biofilm reactor as regeneration method and COD as limiting contaminant, 69.43% of freshwater reduction was achieved.
By application of WPA outcomes, cost reduction of 33% and 50% of the current operating costs could be attained for direct reuse and regeneration recycle options, respectively.
... To evaluate the scenarios, the MADM method is applied. WFs are used as the indices in some previous studies (Skouteris et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2019;Xu et al., 2018). This study considers blue and gray WF reduction as the first two attributes. ...
... Thus, the manufacturing industry can improve its products' WF by implementing sustainable water management strategies. Moreover, water policy plays a critical role in attracting the necessary investment to rehabilitate mine-impacted aquatic ecosystems (Turton, 2016;Skouteris et al., 2018), even though this role is often overlooked. Based on the results obtained, it is recommended that various industries consider wastewater reuse from treatment plants in nearby cities. ...
The steel industry is known for its high water consumption and wastewater production, making it crucial to evaluate the environmental sustainability of water use in this sector. A product's water footprint (WF) represents the total freshwater volume used to produce consumer goods. In this study, the WF concept was used to evaluate the sustainability of water consumption in a steel plant in southeastern Iran. The WF components, including blue and gray water, were calculated for the steel production process from extraction to pelletizing. The findings revealed that indirect WF, such as water used in energy production, was nearly equal to direct WF, representing water used in the production process. To reduce the WF, seven scenarios based on the 3Rs (Reduction, Reuse, Recycling) strategies were proposed. The M-TOPSIS method, a multi-attribute decision-making technique, was used to prioritize the scenarios based on their effectiveness in gray and blue WF reduction, financial worth (income–expense balance), and the priority of the 3Rs strategy. The results indicated that the scenario of wastewater reuse from nearby cities achieved the highest priority due to its significant impact on reducing blue WF (by 38%) at a reasonable cost. The findings demonstrate that the proposed methodology can be applied to similar production systems.
... Water use occurs both directly and indirectly in a typical building construction project. The water utilized directly comprises worker consumption, water needed to wash aggregates, prepare raw concrete, cure concrete, suppress dust, and wash equipment and hard surfaces [6,13,8]. Embodied water utilized in manufacturing building materials is related to indirect use [14]. ...
... Because of these reasons, WPA is widely utilized as a tool for water conservation in industrial process plants [26,27]. Moreover, recently the WPA [13] and other modern water-saving and management techniques [29][30][31] have been utilized and proved efficient for water resource management and building construction projects. ...
Water usage and wastage management in the construction industry is the key to achieving active water efficiency. It is essential to use water conservation practices in the process of building construction as there is a huge amount of water being wasted and not recycled or reused. This study aims to evaluate the various criteria affecting water usage and wastage during the construction work of buildings, to identify sources of water wastage during building construction work, to evaluate water wastage quantity in residential building construction projects, and to suggest the methodology for the selection of the alternative methods, measures, and strategies to reduce water wastage. The research objective further enlightened the data collection and survey parameters to derive the results and discuss the measures that can be incorporated to cater to the issue's solution. The results derived from the questionnaire survey also helped to understand the existing ongoing practices of building construction in Mumbai City and derived the Mean Score Index (MSI) of the questionnaires along with the ranking of weightage of questions which then later helped in developing the measures and strategies of water management which can help to conserve water in building construction practice. Water management tools and techniques must be incorporated into various activities involved in the construction industry and other industries where water consumption and utilization are significantly higher. With ongoing concerns of Mumbai city for water-related issues, it is mandatory and very important to understand the usage and wastage of water in building construction in Mumbai City and derive the measures and strategies for the conservation of the same.
... In Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, the total emissions from brick kilns from the outskirts of the city are estimated at 1.8 million tons of CO 2 emissions from producing~3.5 billion bricks per year, using energy-inefficient technologies such as fixed-chimney bull-trench kilns that use coal, fuelwood, and agricultural waste as energy materials [10]. Water is another input for producing bricks, used for mixing materials and cleaning facilities [11]. In addition to direct water input, indirect water input for the production of materials and fuels can affect the water demand for brick production, particularly the use of fuel and firewood [12,13]. ...
... The total WF of single brick production was approximately 0.003 m 3 . We omitted the direct water consumption for brick production, which is estimated to be 0.0017 m 3 per brick (average 3.0 kg) [11]. This demonstrates that indirect water consumption was approximately twice that of direct water consumption and was of high significance in terms of water consumption for brick production. ...
Clay-fired bricks are widely used in emerging economies mainly because of the unavailability of higher-grade construction and building materials; however, they are associated with significant social and environmental damage. The environmental burdens associated with the fuels and materials required for brick production are huge, as they have both direct and indirect effects along supply chains. This study aimed to assess the environmental footprints of brick production along supply chains, focusing on relevant environmental issues in brick production: carbon dioxide emissions, water consumption, and land use. We demonstrate that fuelwood consumption constitutes a major share of the carbon and water footprints, whereas built-up land for brick drying dominates the major effect of land use. Our expansion of the ecological footprint method enables a comparison of the effects of three different environmental issues with the same land area dimension, which reveals the relative severity of carbon dioxide emissions that account for up to 20% of the national CO2 inventory. For the potential reduction in the environmental footprint of brick production, scenario analysis showed a substantial reduction by replacing clay-fired bricks with concrete bricks. The shift to alternative materials, together with mitigation measures for brick production, can effectively alleviate the environmental pressures of construction materials in future emerging economies.
... In a manufacturing context, but specifically in the manufacture of bricks, it was studied, which used the reuse and regeneration of water, which was possible to reduce the total consumption of water for the manufacture of bricks (SKOUTERIS et al., 2018). ...
... (ix) The proposal presented by Skouteris et al. (2018) directs attention to sustainable consumption strategies in brick manufacture. It was possible to produce bricks with little water, which is a path several manufacturers should direct their eyes. ...
The concern with water is due to the increase in population, and with that, there was an increase in water consumption. In the face of a water scarcity scenario, it is necessary to direct efforts so that this does not occur. One of the ways it can meet the demand is through technology for water reuse. In this sense, the research proposal was to carry out a systematic and integrative review of the literature on technology transfer related to water, focusing on water reuse. A systematic and integrative review was used, Methodi Ordinatio was used, and the databases of Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect were consulted; at the end, 33 articles on the subject were selected. The main findings were that the focus of the research is related to the promotion of water reuse and concerns about water consumption. The study elucidates the importance of public policies related to the consumption and reuse of water. It reinforces the importance of understanding the awareness
and acceptance of the population to such aspects. One of the alternatives to supply the water scarcity scenario was through the desalination of water. Still, advances are needed to overcome the barrier of high energy consumption and waste generation. Concerning technology transfer, knowledge sharing at a global level is necessary for technology transfer to occur effectively and have satisfactory results. It is concluded that the discussion on the subject is far from being exhausted,
and this article encourages discussions on the topic.
... The temperature, material concentration, and time act as quality parameters, whereas electricity, mass flowrate, and enthalpy are set as quantity parameters for the existing Pinch Analysis studies (Linnhoff and Hindmarsh, 1983). The versatile and flexibility of the Pinch Analysis to provide global targets for optimising the resources led to its application across various fields such as Total Site Heat (Klemeš et al., 1997), Water and Mass Analysis (Klemeš et al., 2014) and updated with the recent developments (Klemeš et al., 2018a), Water Pinch Analysis (Skouteris et al., 2018), Water Scarcity Pinch Analysis (Jia et al., 2020), Carbon Emission Pinch Analysis (Tan et al., 2018), Electric System Cascade Analysis (Ho et al., 2014a,b), Power Pinch Analysis (Liu et al., 2016), and Stand-alone Hybrid Power Pinch Analysis (Ho et al., 2014a,b). Jia et al. (2020) targeted all the water supply and demand streams in the Water Scarcity Pinch Analysis based on the water quality parameters, and recently Chin et al. (2021) extended Pinch Analysis to target and synthesise water recycling networks with multiple contaminants. ...
... From the study, the water flowrate for utilities that required higher water purity was minimised. Skouteris et al. (2018) developed an analytic tool to manage water usage in the brick manufacturing industry. The water targeting strategy applied the Material Recovery Pinch Diagram (impurity versus flowrate graphical representation comprising supply and demand Composite Curves) to determine different water allocations for various processes. ...
Valorisation of organic waste can lead to cleaner production in the energy sector. One factor affecting the decision for organic waste valorisation to value-added products through biological processes is the carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio. All biological processes have preferential C/N ratios for optimum performance, while organic waste comes with a wide range of C/N ratios. The mismatch of the C/N ratio between the supply stream (organic waste) and the demand stream (biological process) can lead to suboptimal process performance and affect resource allocation. In this study, a new graphical C/N ratio Pinch Analysis approach was proposed by plotting cumulative carbon mass flowrate versus the cumulative nitrogen mass flowrate as x- and y-axes for the supply and demand sides. A series of graphical Supply Composite Curve (SCC) shifting, namely SCC right-shifting, SCC end-shifting, SCC detaching, and SCC down-shifting, were developed explicitly tackling different supply stream conditions in the hypothetical case studies while satisfying the demand streams with the aid of external supply. The external supply was determined by filling the gaps formed after the SCC was shifted to the right of the Demand Composite Curve (DCC). Specific heuristics were established to assess the range of C/N ratio for the external supply that is eligible and preferred to satisfy the demand streams. Stepwise procedures for mass flowrate allocation to mix the supply and match the demand were introduced. In this study, the demands for Case Study 1 were satisfied by 59.15% OWLA with 40.83% ES 3. For Case Study 2, the demands were satisfied by 76.19% OWLA with 23.81% ES 1. For Case Study 3, the demands were satisfied by 91.54% OWLA with 8.46% ES 1. The integration of the C/N ratio element in the Pinch-based Analysis of SCC shifting and exploring new optimisation scope can act as an advising tool for any individual, party, or organisation to optimally valorise the organic waste found within a local region.
... 26 The case-oriented study has shown the WF of one brick was 2.02 L, with a 15.6% WF reduction through direct reuse/recycling and a notable 80.4% decrease through water regeneration for brick production. 27 Focusing on minimizing WF by reducing emissions and freshwater abstraction can offer valuable insights for decisionmakers evaluating the efficiency of circular water use and its economic implementation benefits. ...
This study presents a pioneering attempt to employ a water allocation optimization modeling coupled with a cost-based quantitative− qualitative water footprint (QQWF) approach in a Central Asian country, using the oil refinery industry of Kazakhstan as a representative case study. The QQWF method assesses the costs of water consumption and contamination removal associated with refining one ton of crude oil, considering scenarios of increased tariffs, mathematical optimization, and enhanced water regeneration efficiency. Results show that the state-of-the-art water consumption (32.8%) contributed less to the total QQWF (0.67 USD) than contaminant removal costs (67.2%). Hydrocarbon removal accounted for 71.1% of the qualitative footprint, highlighting the considerable loading of crude oil residues in the wastewater. Scenario simulations revealed a substantial increase (15.6-fold) in the QQWF under increased water tariffs, suggesting the potential of economic instruments for water conservation. Improved efficiency of water regeneration units could achieve a 12% reduction in the QQWF, underlining the importance of wastewater treatment technologies for promoting water reuse within industries. The findings demonstrated the importance of robust, comprehensive incentives to drive the shift toward sustainable water use in industry, particularly within the context of Kazakhstan and Central Asian economies.
... The total water consumption to produce a single brick is approximately 0.003 m³, with the indirect water consumption being twice the direct water consumption. This demonstrates the importance of considering the supply chain's water footprint in addition to the direct water use during brick production [36]. The estimated total water consumption for brick production in Bangladesh rose from around 49.70 Mm³ in 2006 to 115.54 Mm³ in 2020. ...
Brick manufacturing is a major global industry employing millions of workers, yet it remains heavily reliant on outdated, polluting technologies. This study aims to categorize the brick kilns according to the way each of them functions. Also, it focuses on the fuel used and its properties. Another goal of the current research is to bring out the effects brick industry has on the environment and the people who work and live near the brick kilns. Conclusively, the current study underscores the urgent necessity for improvement and for the adoption of the strategies outlined to guide the brick manufacturing field toward a more sustainable future.
... This application enables SMEs to assess their own performance in terms of sustainable water management and identify measures to enhance water efficiency in their tourism operations. It also evaluates the effectiveness of water-tourism policies and the level of good governance at the local and regional levels to enhance sustainable water management (Wijesiri & Hettiarachchi, 2021) (Skouteris et al., 2018) (Papagiannis et al., 2018) (Baccour et al., 2021). Additionally, an examination of the analysis results also shows that for Italy, Germany, Australia, the UK, Malawi, South Korea, Spain, Nepal, and the Netherlands, these countries are currently at the forefront of contributing to this discussion from the perspective of awareness of sustainable water management. ...
The recognition of the importance of sustainable water management has increased due to the emergence and strong focus on the Sustainable Development Goal. Consequently, there has been progress in understanding various disciplines, specifically aimed at addressing concerns related to water consumption and pressure, sustainable water generation, and the sustainable administration of water resources. Therefore, the aim of this article is to bridge this gap by using a bibliometric approach to analyze the number of contributions and their impact on the literature regarding awareness of sustainable water management in the field of management sciences. This study seeks to identify areas of research that can be further explored to improve the literature on this emerging subject through a critical analysis of articles obtained from the Scopus database. It is important to note that sustainable water management and awareness are two interconnected and crucial domains that play a vital role in ensuring the sustainable use of water resources and promoting public health. The uniqueness of this study is of great importance for scholars, researchers, and policymakers in the field of management sciences, as it presents a comprehensive research agenda on the awareness of sustainable water management.
... The pinch technique was presented also to minimize wastewater discharge in industrial plants. Many other pinch based techniques have been introduced last decades to solve the problem of wastewater network optimization for minimizing freshwater and wastewater discharge in industrial plants [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. However, pinch and graphical based methods are suitable only for solving simple case studies; when the plant includes a high number of streams, it would be difficult to be solved via graphical based methods. ...
: Controlling the distribution of water and wastewater between industrial processes is very vital in rationalizing water and preserving the environment. In this paper, a mathematical technique is proposed to optimize water-wastewater networks; a nonlinear program is introduced to minimize the consumption of freshwater, and consequently, the flowrate of the wastewater dis-charge will be also minimized. A general mathematical model, able to handle industrial plants containing up to eight sources and eight sinks, is developed using LINGO optimization software to facilitate dealing with complex case studies. The introduced model can handle single contam-inant networks as well as multiple contaminants cases. The optimal water network is synthe-sized through two steps; the first step is to introduce the case study data to the developed mathematical model. The second step considers using the optimal solution produced after run-ning the developed LINGO model as feed data for a pre-designed Excel sheet able to deal with these results and simultaneously draw the optimal water-wastewater network. The proposed mathematical model is applied to two case studies; The first case study includes actual data from four fertilizer plants located in Egypt; the water resources and requirements are simultaneously integrated to obtain a sensible cutting in both freshwater consumption (lowered by 52.2%) and wastewater discharge (zero wastewater discharge). The second case study is for a Brazilian pet-rochemical plant; the obtained results showed noticeable reductions in freshwater consumption for the second case study by 12.3 % while the reduction percentage of wastewater discharge is 4.5%.
... The pinch technique was presented also to minimize wastewater discharge from industrial plants. Many other pinch-based techniques were introduced in the last decades to solve the problem of wastewater network optimization and minimize freshwater use and wastewater discharge in industrial plant operations [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. However, pinch and graphical methods are only suitable for simple case studies; when a plant includes a high number of streams, it is difficult to optimize a water-wastewater network via graphical methods. ...
Controlling the distribution of water and wastewater between industrial processes is vital to rationalize water usage and preserve the environment. In this paper, a mathematical technique is proposed to optimize water–wastewater networks, and a nonlinear program is introduced to minimize the consumption of freshwater and, consequently, the flowrate of wastewater discharge. A general mathematical model, able to handle industrial plants containing up to eight sources and eight sinks, is developed using LINGO optimization software to facilitate dealing with complex case studies. The introduced model can handle single-contaminant networks as well as multiple-contaminant ones. The optimal water network is synthesized through two steps; the first step involves the introduction of the case study data into the developed mathematical model. The second step considers using the optimal solution produced after running the developed LINGO model as feed data for a pre-designed Excel sheet able to deal with these results and simultaneously draw the optimal water–wastewater network. The proposed mathematical model is applied to two case studies. The first case study includes actual data from four fertilizer plants located in Egypt; the water resources and requirements are simultaneously integrated to obtain a sensible cutting in both freshwater consumption (lowered by 52.2%) and wastewater discharge (zero wastewater discharge). The second case study regards a Brazilian petrochemical plant; the obtained results show noticeable reductions in freshwater consumption by 12.3%, while the reduction percentage of wastewater discharge is 4.5%.
... In certain water-deficient areas, people are already facing the issues due to the unavailability of freshwater, even for drinking purposes (Solomon, 2019). Water scarcity is recognized as a serious threat to natural ecosystem and human health globally (Agarwal et al., 2010;España-Gamboa et al., 2011;Skouteris et al., 2018). ...
The water quality is perpetually deteriorating at an alarming rate due to industrial effluent. The treatment and disposal of wastewater, and its reutilization, remain critical concerns for the sustainable consumption of water in the food and beverage sector. In this paper, a comparative analysis of effluents from two beverage industries has been conducted using wastewater chemistry. Both industries are spatially located along the water channel (Nullah) in the industrial estate areas of two major cities (Rawalpindi and Peshawar) in Pakistan. Initial wastewater characterization was conducted through composite sampling techniques to assess compliance with National Environmental Quality Standards for industrial effluent. Descriptive statistical analysis, correlation matrix, and Multiple Linear Regression analysis were performed to identify and quantify the effluent constituents. The effluent from beverage industries exhibited high concentrations of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), which degrade the quality of water bodies. Treatment of wastewater in the food and beverage sector is important for water recycling, resource recovery, and environmental protection. In novel approaches to circular economy principles, the consumption and management of water can facilitate resource recovery, leading to higher sustainability and productivity in food production. In water-stressed countries like Pakistan, recycled wastewater can mitigate the adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts. The utilization of wastewater treatment plants, employing chemical, physical, and biological treatment methods to remove sugar, flavors, and color additives, can reduce BOD and COD levels. Considering the large volume of wastewater, it is highly recommended to reuse and recycle the effluent after initial treatment through efficient technologies to minimize organic pollutant loads.
... An increase in population tends to increase the WEF [22]. Economic development tends to expand the demand for water resources, but technological upgrading and economies of scale contribute to the intensity of water use, thus reducing the WEF [23][24][25]. In addition to demographic and economic factors, natural factors, especially climate changes, profoundly affect the WEF [26]. ...
Urbanization, which is accompanied by the flow of various production factors, leads to increasingly close spatial linkages between cities, and exerts profound influences on water resource use. This study focuses on the three major urban agglomerations in China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt, and examines the temporal changes and spatial variations of its water resource use based on an improved water ecological footprints (WEFs) model that uses city-level data to calculate yield factors and considers the recycling of water resources. Moreover, this study investigates the spatial autocorrelation of WEFs and explores the spatial correlations between WEFs and three dimensions of urbanization (population, economy, land) in three urban agglomerations. The results show that the WEF is the highest in the downstream of the Yangtze River and the lowest in the upper stream. City-level WEFs have significant spatial autocorrelations, and cities with high water use are often concentrated. In some regions, urbanization and WEFs have significant spatial correlations, indicating the environmental externality of urbanization on water resource use. This study contributes to the methodology of developing localized water use evaluation indices, and provides insights into the driving factors of WEFs and the environmental externality of urbanization at different spatial scales. Its findings provide empirical support for formulating and implementing more targeted water resources protection measures in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
... Where: Pop = The total population in the region; WC = Water Consumption (m 3 /Capita/day). The population was estimated for the next 25 years using Equation (4). ...
... Otro punto importante que generó cierta preocupación es la poca importancia que se le da a la conservación del agua, en la tabla 04 en el ítem ahorro de agua sólo el 24.7 % se preocupa por su cuidado; lo cual, según Skouteris et al. (2018), podría causar un aumento significativo en la huella hídrica de la zona, si esto no varía al uso de sistemas de gestión hídrica sostenibles; las cuales de acuerdo con lo descrito por Hadj (2020) no solo disminuyen los daños al ambiente, sino que favorecen al crecimiento de las empresas. ...
Introducción.
En la actualidad, la gestión ambiental se ha convertido en uno de los ejes principales para los diferentes rubros de la empresa. La gestión ambiental en sinergia con la responsabilidad social son factores claves para causar el menor impacto de las actividades sobre el medio ambiente, siendo este último factor el que asegura el cumplimiento de las normas y políticas establecidas por las autoridades competentes.
Objetivo.
Determinar el nivel de relación entre la gestión ambiental y responsabilidad social de la empresa dedicada al rubro de tejas y ladrillos en el distrito San Jerónimo, Cusco, Perú.
Materiales y métodos.
La información obtenida fue recolectada por medio de encuestas a una muestra de 102 fabricantes de tejas y ladrillos del distrito de San Jerónimo, Cusco. Para el análisis de los datos se utilizó el estadístico de correlación de Spearman y el análisis factorial con nivel de significancia de 95 %.
Resultados.
Con la aplicación del método se obtuvo el nivel de relación de la gestión ambiental y la responsabilidad social mediante la correlación de Spearman siendo de 1.6 % con p=0.156>0.05.
Conclusiones.
Se determinó que la gestión ambiental no guarda un nivel de relación significativo con la responsabilidad social en el sector de tejas y ladrillos del distrito de San Jerónimo, Cusco. Asimismo, para la gestión ambiental, se identificó que el factor de planificación es el más importante y para la responsabilidad social, las responsabilidades voluntarias.
... As mentioned above, major obstacle in the commercialization of producing biofuels from microalgae is high cost and high water consumption; however, alongside with producing value-added material from downstream process, applying Pinch Analysis would be beneficial in order to optimize and enhance process efficiency. The purpose of Pinch Analysis in this process which according to [101] is an effective tool to aim sustainable water consumption is to minimize water consumption and to find the maximum concentration of microalgae in the input of the photobioreactor not only to meet the required demand of the system but also to increase the amount of produced by-products and enhance efficiency of the process which ultimately causes costs reduction and according to. ...
... Water footprint have been widely applied to assess the effects on water environment in many industries, such as wine-making industry [13][14][15], gaming industry [16], steel industry [17], brick-manufacturing industry [18], cement industry [19], dairy industry [6,20], electric power industry [21], mining industry [22], plumbing Industry [23], gold industry [24], match industry [25], and bottled water model industry [26]. For textile industry, Chapagain et al. [27] studied the green water footprint, blue water footprint and grey water footprint of cotton growing around the world from 1997 to 2001. ...
... Recently, Skouteris et al. (2018) performed research in the brick-manufacturing industry. To manage water systems in this industry, they used two techniques which they named water pinch analysis and water footprint. ...
The application of sustainable water management is vital for all industrial sectors, especially the food industry, one of the most water-consuming sectors. It can be managed by optimizing water reuse, regeneration, and recycling to optimize the production costs and reduce the environmental impacts. Using classical mass integration methods can help to reduce water consumption and wastewater production. Implementing these methods in the food sector faces various challenges, such as the lack of water and wastewater volume in different operations and the data related to pollutant indicators. As a variation of energy pinch, water pinch analysis is a comprehensive and systematic approach that tries to minimize water consummation and wastewater production. This classic method is suitable for mono-contaminant systems. However, most industrial systems are complex and involve multiple contaminants, especially in the food sector. The classic methods are not able to deal with these kinds of problems. Using numerical optimization tools by inspiring water pinch logic is a suitable approach to handling real and complex water networks.Two numerical tools based on the logic of water pinch analysis are developed. The first tool is based on a manual optimization approach assisted by numerical algorithms. The second tool is based on constrained multi-objective optimization. These two tools are developed to handle real and complex industrial water systems that contain multiple contaminants. The designed approaches lead to target the minimum freshwater by using the maximum possibility of reuse. A French edible oil company has been selected as the real industrial application of the developed tools.
... Two types of streams result from wastewater treatment units. One of these types is treated water streams, which may be recirculated to produce savings in freshwater use [66] (this work uses water recirculation as a term to include both water recycling to the process of origin and water reuse from one process to another [67]). Another type is sludge streams, which in turn may be valorised through the implementation of wastewater-to-energy technologies [68]. ...
The improvement of water and energy use is an important concern in the scope of improving the overall performance of industrial process plants. The investment in energy efficiency comprehended by the most recent sustainability policies may prove to be an effective response to the fall of energy intensity rates associated with the economic crisis brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. The improvement in water efficiency may also prove to be a potential approach due to its interdependencies to energy use, whose exploitation comprises part of the study of the water-energy nexus. Waste heat recovery and water reclamation practices have been exploited to improve water and energy efficiency. A specific method designated “Combined Water and Energy Integration” has been applied to water recycling as both an additional water source and a heat recovery source in a set of water-using processes. In scientific and industrial domains, there is still a need for integrated approaches of water-using and combustion-based processes for overall water and energy efficiency improvements in industrial plants. In this work, an innovative approach for a simultaneous improvement of water and energy use is proposed based on process integration and system retrofitting principles. This proposal is based on the delineation of two innovative concepts: Water and Energy Integration Systems (WEIS) and Water-Heat Nexus (WHN). A review on existing technologies for waste heat recovery, thermal energy storage and heat-driven wastewater treatment is performed, following a conceptualisation design.
... Some applications of using Water Pinch Analysis were reported in the literature, such as the brick-manufacturing industry (Skouteris et al., 2018), where direct re-use/recycling and water regeneration were compared; oil refinery (Mohammadnejad et al., 2011), where suspended solids, hardness and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) were analysed and the amount of freshwater was reduced; and urban system (Manan et al., 2006) to reduce fresh water and wastewater. ...
This work provides an overview of recent graphical approaches which can provide beneficial support for various applications enhancing cleaner production and, consequently, sustainability. Graphical tools, mostly based on a physical inside, play an important role in the decision-making process in engineering and can also be in cleaner production and contribute to sustainability. They have the advantage of illustrating the process by providing clear insight. This paper reviews the graphical approaches to show the developing timeline and trend of some tool series and the method of implementing these tools for specific issues. The review focuses on the energy, water, material, pollution and greenhouse gas emission reduction and also the safety issues that may affect human health and the normal production process. A total of 48 visual tools, especially some classic and widely used diagrams, are illustrated, and their characteristics are analysed. The future direction and potential of graphical tools to include the consideration of flexibility and reliability in cleaner production to reduce energy/water/material consumption and emissions in a longer period and to avoid harm to human health and living conditions have been assessed, and conclusions made. The development of efficient concepts and visualisations for Circular Economy implementations is also an important area to be tackled.
... Klemeš et al. [7] presented an overview of different potential applications of PA and directions for future research. PA and mathematical optimization provide mathematical models for the water allocation problem (WAP) using qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the process water streams [8]. Water recovery is the core idea, and two different approaches can be adopted: direct reuse/recycling or regeneration reuse/recycling [9]. ...
Despite being well disseminated, most algorithmic-algebraic methods of process integration still have gaps in the issue of multiple contaminants, especially when it comes to situations that include regeneration. To fill this gap, a new approach using Water Source Diagram in water systems covering fixed load problems and fixed flow rate problems with multiple contaminants and considering regeneration recycling is proposed in the present research. Algorithmic-algebraic methods for modifying water networks, considering the addition of regeneration units, should be designed in such a way as to suit the requirements of water-consuming operations and with the least increase in the costs. Three examples from the literature have been solved using the proposed algorithm, and the results obtained are comparable to those obtained in the literature using algebraic and mathematical methods. Also, the solution is defined in such a way that if an industrial unit wants to use a treatment plant to reduce freshwater consumption, three major factors are determined: a) the optimal post-regeneration concentration, b) the minimum regenerated water flow rate, and c) the appropriate water sources to be regenerated.
... A compilation of these techniques may be found in various textbooks (Foo 2013;El-Halwagi 2017), review papers (Foo 2009;Jeżowski 2010), and an industrial handbook (Klemeš 2013). Numerous successful applications of pinch analysis have been reported, such as aluminium anodising industries (Khezri et al. 2010), oil refineries (Mohammadnejad et al. 2012, and brick-making plants (Skouteris et al. 2018). ...
As climate change escalates, there is a need for proper planning of future use of water resources. The occurrence of prolonged droughts and fluctuation of weather patterns can lead to serious water scarcity issues. Process integration techniques have been widely used for water management in the process plants. This paper extends the insight-based and mathematical programming techniques of process integration to incorporate health aspects in water management. In particular, health quality index is used as a quality metric in considering water recovery in a system of processes. The consideration of health aspects is important for cases involving direct contact of human body with water, such as in water recreational activities. In addition, multi-period planning (MPP) is also considered in this work, where water recovery takes place across different periods. A representative water park case study is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed method.
... Industry (Hoekstra, 2015) This study discussed a new perspective on the water footprint concept in increasing water use in the industrial sector. Brick manufacturing (Skouteris et al., 2018) The total water footprint of a brick is 2.02 L, of which blue water contribution is relatively higher than green and grey water footprint. Textile industry (Li et al., 2017) Changes in the water footprint of the textile industry from 2001 to 2014 were calculated and compared with the economic growth of the textile industry in China. ...
Over the last four decades, water security assessment has attracted much political and economic attention. An improved understanding of the relationships between water demand and supply is needed to mitigate the impacts of diminishing water resources. This study provides an overview of water security assessment by focusing on the various water security indicators and the concept of water footprint (blue, green, and grey water). The water security indicators based on the water footprint concept is currently receiving more attention because it accounts for the return flow from the total water withdrawn from a watershed. We also investigate the application of different physically-based hydrological models, such as Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC), on water security assessment at a regional to continental scale. However, hydrological/agricultural system models cannot quantify evapotranspiration from irrigation and rainwater separately. Therefore, independent quantification of blue and green water footprint from the irrigated field is challenging. For illustration purposes, we apply the fully distributed Agricultural Ecosystems Services (AgES) model in the Big Dry Creek Watershed (BDCW), an intensively managed and irrigated watershed located in semiarid Colorado. The results indicate that the blue water footprint is higher than the green water footprint in the watershed. In addition, the spatial distribution of grey water footprint is highly correlated with the amount of fertilizer application. The variation of grey water footprint in the irrigated fields is higher than blue and green water footprints. We conclude that applying a physically distributed model can provide useful insight into the impact of climate and anthropogenic activities on water security at different scales.
... Within the practices of PI, pinch analysis (PA) has advanced a long way beyond the original studies to envisage the performance of a process prior to the detailed design [3]. Till-date, PA had been successfully applied to numerous industries, such as ethanol production unit [4], starch production unit [5], refinery unit [6], brick production unit [7], steel making plant [8], and butadiene production process [9]. Thus, the progress of PI is a crucial step in chemical process industries for consideration of material and energy recovery simultaneously as it allowed to address the confines complex network targets and designs. ...
In this study, an optimal scheme is proposed by utilizing waste streams at a plant-wide scale along with pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) membrane allocation in complex industrial networks for energy recovery. Chemical exergy pinch analysis (ChExPA) and process graph (P-graph) are used to address the problem. The ultimate goals of utilizing the tools are (1) determine the optimal external load consumption, (2) minimizing the waste discharge, and (3) sustainable energy production while utilizing high chemical exergy potential waste discharges. A reliability assessment assisted with Monte-Carlo simulation is further performed to evaluate the proposed solutions from P-graph considering uncertainties. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is explained using three industrial case studies which covered both intra-plant and inter-plant networks. The results indicated that ChExPA and P-graph can effectively identify the optimal location of the PRO membrane in industrial networks. Upon analyzing the complex inter-plant industrial networks 7.795 MW net power output was harnessed, and significantly higher waste of 384.92 kg/s was recovered with a levelized cost of energy of 0.073 1,191,000 (i.e., 5.84 times highest than stand-alone plants) with a reasonable payback-period of 4.5 years.
... Bricks have an embodied water content of roughly 710 litres per m 3 (i.e. approximately 1.5 litres per product), according to Bardhan (2011), while Skouteris (2018) determined that a brick has a WF up to 1.7 litres. ...
Precast concrete masonry units are a widely utilized construction material around the world. The blue water footprint of precast concrete masonry units is a quantifiable indicator for the built environment's long-term sustainability. The present study aims to assess the blue water footprint of precast masonry units from a cradle-to-gate approach, by adopting a mixed-method design. Experimental and secondary data were used to determine the embedded water content of precast concrete masonry units. Two major industrial establishments in Sri Lanka that produce precast concrete masonry units were subjected to a water audit. Facts on environmental impact of the manufacturing process were gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire. The Water Footprint Assessment Manual of the Water Footprint Network provided the theoretical framework for this research. The results revealed a blue water footprint of 2.96 per standard size precast concrete masonry unit. Water conservation measures are recommended in the preliminary impact assessment.
... In this way, a perception of the volumes of water required in the production of various products is created and a consequent reduction in water losses, knowing the amount of virtual water needed to produce a certain product and the environmental impact resulting from this activity (Nemati-Amirkolaii et al. 2019). The integration of water pinch analysis coupled with water footprint concepts provides a robust and effective tool for the manufacturing industries that aim for sustainable water consumption (Skouteris et al. 2018). ...
Geosciences and geoethics emerge at the core of a globally increasing demand of resources and the risk of scarcity for the new generations, promoting social, economic and environmental awareness, better management of resources and our commitment to environmental issues. According to the United Nations World Water Assessment Program, water consumption rates increased in the last decades and this trend is likely to continue over the coming years. Driven by climatic hazards due to human activities or by the denaturation of freshwater sources, in certain regions of the planet, water is becoming increasingly scarce, already facing water supply deficits, water resources must be saved as much as possible. The industrial sector accounts for a considerable volume of freshwater consumption, lagging behind the agriculture sector. Nonetheless, the global annual water used in industry is expected to increase and, particularly, much of this increase will occur in developing countries, experiencing rapid industrial progress. The present work deals with a case study of the intervention and adaptation of a wastewater treatment process of a food company. Through a water pinch analysis, within the concept of circular economy, it is envisaged to improve the efficiency of the water management system through a reduction in water and energy use and also wastewater generation. The introduction of new stages in the treatment process is proposed to allow the reuse of treated wastewater and to reduce raw water consumption from natural sources. This research points to the use of phytoremediation processes combined with ion exchange columns, packed with a mix of cationic and anionic resins. The results were promising and point to an intervention proposal with a reduction of up to 55% in the consumption of raw water and a 45% reduction in the volume of treated wastewater sent for discharge.
... On the other hand, to reduce GWF and save freshwater, China and nations that export high VGW need technological improvements towards cleaner production, such as water pinch analysis techniques at the industry level (Skouteris et al. 2018;Tian et al. 2018), or learning and applying new agricultural technologies ) and adopting more environmental practices to reduce water pollution and consumption (Lamastra et al. 2017) at agricultural level. Another way of saving freshwater in production side of the trade is through removing price distortions on fertilizers in agricultural sector that will reduce uncontrolled fertilizer use and then VGW transmission (Cai et al. 2017). ...
Systematic reviews are a more complete, repeatable, and less biased form of literature reviews leading to evidence-based conclusions. A systematic review was conducted on articles that have investigated the trade of virtual gray water (VGW) and its effect on freshwater pollution in importer and exporter partners. Scopus and ScienceDirect databases were searched for journal articles covering VGW trade on global, international, and national scales. The relevant articles then were selected and using snowball approach led to more relevant articles. Then, the required data were extracted and recorded. A total of 34 articles met the inclusion criteria, of which 13 articles studied VGW trade on a national scale, 13 on an international scale, and the rest on a global scale. The present study developed a critical appraisal tool to evaluate the methodological quality of the included articles. The results of the critical appraisal showed that none of the included articles can undergo quantitative synthesis. Research gaps regarding VGW trade were observed in the water-scarce developing countries that need to be covered. One of the policy implications to reduce pollution impacts on water bodies would be agricultural and industrial reforms by VGW exporters. Besides, changes in economic structure in both sides of the trade, and goods or water consumption patterns, especially by VGW importers, can also play an important role in water resource conservation. Therefore, international and multi-stockholder cooperation should be taken to alleviate the environmental impacts of the VGW trade.
... The increasing water demand, coupled with the scarcity of water resources and the increasing frequency of droughts due to climate change, have grabbed the attention of the research community, which raised the alarms on the growing vulnerability of the water resource management [1][2][3][4]. Elevated Water Tanks (EWTs) are lifeline structures because their functions are essential to remain serviceable after natural hazards and possible disasters, to support the demand of drinking water and firefighting purposes. ...
The damage suffered by elevated water tanks in previous seismic events can be generally attributed to poor performance of their frame-type supporting structure. It is pivotal to quantify the damage experienced by these tanks in damage states in order to ascertain their performance. In this study, the nonlinear response of frame-supported elevated water tanks is investigated using performance-based earthquake engineering method by utilizing the top drift of frame staging as the engineering demand parameter to evaluate its performance level. The influence of different patterns of reinforced concrete frame staging on the response of elevated water tanks was quantified using a fragility assessment. Finite element approach was employed and a total of nine models were developed representing the variation in staging patterns (basic, cross, and radial bracing configurations) and water-filling levels (empty, half-full, and full conditions) of the tanks and considering the fluid-structure interaction effect. Non-linear analyses were performed based on different seismic scenarios, and the seismic damage states from each staging pattern were evaluated. Fragility curves were generated according to three performance limit states specified in Vision 2000 and based on incremental dynamic analysis results for each staging pattern. Finally, the collapse margin ratios were quantified to evaluate the seismic safety margin against collapse of the elevated water tanks. From the analysis results, elevated water tanks having staging with cross and radial configurations showed better seismic performance compared to the basic configuration.
Earthen bricks are one of the main building materials that are still widely used today. The high demand for bricks requires innovation and creativity in obtaining raw materials, including testing compressive strength and comparing it with burnt bricks available on the market to ensure appropriate standards are applied. In general, to compare unfired bricks with burned bricks, rice husk, and bagasse ashes were included in this study to establish the compressive strength test. Materials for non-burning bricks can have different ratios of cement, red earth, lime, rice husk ash, and bagasse ash, each with a different composition. The planned compressive strength value for burnt and unburnt reach bricks does not reach 5 MPa, for burnt bricks, the average is 3,59 MPa, and for burnt bricks with rice husk ash 4,3 MPa and with sugarcane bagasse ash 4,27 MPa. However, these bricks are still ideal for non-structural purposes. The comparative compressive strength test results show that rice husk ash increases the strength of unfired bricks by 16,51%, while sugarcane bagasse ash shows an increase of 18,94%. Thus, this study represents an advancement of science and environmental benefits.
The transformation of the planet by humanity has presented positive and negative effects on the availability of resources. Causing a growing demand for resources to maintain population and economic development. However, it is necessary to determine global environmental sustainability (GES) to guarantee the availability of resources. GES involves various interrelated components. One of these is water, which is overexploited in many countries. Therefore, it is necessary to quantify its use (water footprints (WF´s)), which has interesting perspectives, such as the generation of comprehensive evaluations about its use, besides, provides information on its consumption associated with the production of goods and services. Alike, serves as a starting point to establish environmental and sustainable management of water resources, and for the identification of areas of vulnerability. Additionally, it provides the bases for determining the degree of GES of a product, area, region or country. However, it has shown important limitations, such as, the lack of standardization in its evaluation, access to quality data, low comparability and transparency of the methodologies used for its calculation. Causing a high uncertainty when determining a system is GES or not, mainly caused by the lack of connection with the planet's environmental thresholds. However, WF´s offers a global perspective on water use, which must be complemented, with the value of other footprints. Due to the above, its present and future calculation must be consistent if it is to be used as a solid tool in decision-making and public policies related to GES.
Integrated water resource management requires a comprehensive assessment of all water uses, both direct and indirect, which can be captured by the Water Footprint (WF) concept, especially in Industrial Symbiosis (IS). IS creates links between different industries to reduce resource consumption. This article analyses the environmental, social, and economic sustainability aspects of the WF in an IS system. First, the inventories of these three aspects were carried out simultaneously with the WF inventory. Sustainability indices were presented based on the relative comparison of current WF and sustainably oriented WF (SOWF). SOWF in an IS system is defined as the situation with minimum total WF and is obtained by mathematical programming. The proposed framework was applied to an IS involving three industries in southeastern Iran: steel production, coal concentrate, and power generation. The blue WFs of these industries were calculated as 11.77 m3/ton of steel, 0.87 m3/ton of coal, and 8.31 m3/MWh of power. The sustainability indices revealed that the steel industry exhibited a more favorable environmental and social performance than other industries, while the power generation was economically superior with a higher cost ratio of current WF to SOWF. Subsequently, several sustainability-enhancing solutions were evaluated based on environmental, economic, and social criteria. Among these, solar energy usage, wastewater reuse, and recycling in iron ore processing emerged as effective strategies to enhance overall sustainability by reducing WFs and improving social criteria. Ultimately, the wastewater reuse option was given the highest priority.
In 2019, a staggering 931 million tons of food went to waste, which is equal to about 17% of all the food available in stores. Dealing with this waste and managing wastewater from various industries will be among the world’s top challenges soon. This is because the global population is expected to grow to around 9 billion people by 2050. Food processing effluent is characterized by valuable material in considerable concentrations, including proteins and lipids with low concentrations of heavy metals and toxicants. Developing an integrated management system for food-processing wastewater should focus on recovering abundant resources, improving the economic value of the process, and mitigating the organic contaminant in the food-processing effluent. This state-of-the-art will review the wastewater management processes of the food processing industry. The latest wastewater treatment processes in different food processing sectors will be reviewed. This review will encompass various physicochemical treatment and recovery techniques, such as precipitation, membrane technology, solvent extraction, foam fractionation, adsorption, and aqueous two-phase systems. Additionally, it will delve into bio-treatment processes that leverage microorganisms and/or enzymes to utilize nutrients found in food-processing wastewater as cost-effective substrates for the production of valuable products. This includes a detailed examination of microalga biomass production within wastewater treatment systems. Finally, the review will put forward future research directions aimed at integrating the principles of the circular economy and developing comprehensive food-processing wastewater management systems.
The study assesses the embodied water (EW) of conventional masonry houses in Jammu, India. The research uses material inventory, site investigations, and hybrid EW coefficients in the hybrid process-based ISO 14046 LCA study. It carries improvised system boundary analysis to infer the disaggregated, aggregated results using descriptive statistics (frequency analysis) and regression. The study finds high aggregated EW at 43.7 KL/m² with materials EW (EWMAT.), in-direct water (IDW), and direct water (DW) components of 51.26%, 40.34%, and 8.38%. The study infers (i) EW is equally important (97%) as the operational water, (ii) sand, aggregates, DW, and finishing materials impact EW more than typical cement, brick, and steel (iii) The unprioritized labor meals and DW are significant and seeks construction management (iv) off-site (pre-cast) construction, and transportation is not a barrier to EW as energy-related EW is negligible. The results identify EW as a multi-faceted issue requiring a collaborative stakeholders' approach than Architecture + Design (A+D) and construction optimizations. The analysis implies the importance of load-bearing constructions in low-rise houses, exposed masonry, alternatives to wall finishes and aggregates, adaptive reuse, and RCC reduction-based A+D. The four houses based solitary study breakthrough a canvas of issues to capitalize EW agenda further.
With increasing global water tensions, the need for a comprehensive water management framework in persistent harsh conditions is crucial. A framework was designed to devise a comprehensive and detailed plan that can strike a balance between all water resources and demands. In contrast to previous studies, this framework can be adopted for long-lasting severe climatic conditions and suggests detailed cultivation patterns and reservoir management. The framework adopts a comprehensive, detailed, novel, multi-objective, and evolutionary-based approach for optimal water management during continuous extreme events in sectors including agriculture, industry, and the environment. Sustainability (ecological water demand and global warming potential), economic welfare, and equitability are allocation principles. This framework utilizes complex, metaheuristic algorithms that enable it to cope with big data and optimize complex systems with high precision. For the case study of the Karkheh basin, the results show that for a full recovery of the Hoor al-Azim wetland, the basin cannot bear the agricultural water demand, and such activities must be decreased drastically. It is also shown that a 10% increase of the agricultural net benefit will result in a 40% increase of the Gini coefficient.
Application of Engineering and Technology in Bridging Technology and Community
South Africa continues to grapple with water insecurity, especially regarding access to rural household water. Access to water in rural areas is communal, yet its distribution remains uneven. A mixed-methods approach was used to elicit data for this study. Quantitative data were collected from 211 households using the survey method where a questionnaire was administered. Qualitative data were collected using key-informant interviews with 20 participants. Quantitative data were analysed using the SPSS software. Qualitative data were analysed using the thematic content analysis technique. The findings indicate that water resource management is intertwined with water allocation. Evidence from Goboti and Khubvi reflect structural inequities and the lack of equalisation of opportunities, especially considering the absence of socially inclusive policy interventions, including the Water Services Act (No. 108 of 1997), which has arguably failed to address the challenges impeding rural household water provision. Further, findings unveiled the fallacy that rural households have a greater acceptance of communal water. This study reflects on how the mandate for transformation has been ignored, prompting the need to understand the implications of lack of water in resource-constrained rural settings. Thus, it is imperative to focus on representation and inclusion within rural communities. More importantly, a commensurable allotment of water resources in South Africa’s post-apartheid extractive political economy and political power of water management remains necessary if water access must be attained.
Climate change, resource scarcity, waste reduction, and the lack of sustainability in process industries are vital concerns that civilization confronts. The process integration methodology may aid such sustainability. In this study, a novel chemical exergy resource recovery network is proposed for optimal energy and waste recovery in high-salinity-gradient chemical industries using a pressure-retarded osmosis membrane while indicating a self-sustainability and allocation in complex industrial networks. The mathematical programming paradigm is expressed as a multilevel optimization model to introduce novel ideas for explicitly modeling the trade-offs between waste and energy flows in circular integration while demonstrating industrial network’s environmental impact assessment. This problem is decomposed into two subproblems (SPs) that must be addressed sequentially. The first SP is designed to decrease the total cost of the network while reducing external resource use. The second SP formulates a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model with the objective of minimizing the environmental effects and exergy consumption rate of the network. A case study of a naphthalene-methaforming plant demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed methodology. The results showed that using a tri-level optimization technique, a considerable improvement in flowrate, total annualized cost, and energy recovery is obtained while limiting the network's environmental impact. The operating phase accounts for approximately 75% of the global warming potential output. The proposed tri-level approach based on Benders’ decomposition approach reduced the overall cost of the network by 19.29%, and 47.42 MW net power is recovered in the case study. In addition, the circular exergy use rate and environmental factor were reduced from 400 to 0.037 MW and from 2.569 to 1.481 kgCO2/year, respectively, using the tri-level decomposition approach.
A mixture of drinking water sources with different chemical characteristics could encourage calcium precipitation. High Ca concentration and/or high Ca/Mg ratio cause recurrent piping scaling. Water pinch is a methodology used to reduce the concentration of contaminants through the mixture of water sources with different compositions; this approach might be used to reduce calcium concentrations. Another option is the reduction of Ca/Mg ratio through the Mg increase concentration. Both cases were developed and discussed using water pinch methodology and a modified procedure, respectively. Kinetics of precipitation of Ca2+ at different Ca/Mg ratios were performed to determine the ratio that minimize the Ca precipitation. Increase of Mg2+ concentration resulted better option compared to the reduction of Ca2+ concentration because the Ca/Mg ratio obtained reduces the precipitation of salts with a lesser amount of water treatment.
Leading countries in the industry have been using pinch technology for optimal heating of processing plants, especially ones with high energy consumption. Using pinch technology in designing and redesigning the plants results in reducing their energy consumption and making them more environmentally friendly. In the present study, the Kaveh Petrochemical Methanol Complex was optimized based on energy-oriented pinch technology using Aspen Hysys and Aspen Energy software. First, a simulation of different parts of the plant was carried out using Aspen Hysys. Aspen Energy was then used to design the plant’s network of heat exchangers. The pinch point for different parts of the plant was obtained through the data of hot and cold streams. This was followed by plotting the composite curve of the streams. After performing the simulation in Aspen Energy software, comprehensive data were obtained from the heat exchanger network at different parts of the plant, including the exchanger area, design specifications, the type and amount of hot and cold utility, etc. Further studies were conducted by redesigning the methanol production cycle retrofit using two LNG heat exchangers. The capital costs increased by around 50%, but operation costs decreased by 53%, and with LNG heat exchangers, the operation costs decreased by an additional 48% as compared to the first cycle. These modifications also lead to a reduction in the thermal load in the methanol cycle.
People use a lot of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but significantly more for producing things such as food, paper and cotton clothes. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. Indirect use refers to the 'virtual water' embedded in tradable goods and commodities, such as cereals, sugar or cotton. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of fresh water that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. This book offers a complete and up-to-date overview of the global standard on water footprint assessment as developed by the Water Footprint Network. More specifically it: provides a comprehensive set of methods for water footprint assessment shows how water footprints can be calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses contains detailed worked examples of how to calculate green, blue and grey water footprints describes how to assess the sustainability of the aggregated water footprint within a river basin or the water footprint of a specific product includes an extensive library of possible measures that can contribute to water footprint reduction. Arjen Y. Hoekstra is Professor in Water Management at the University of Twente, the Netherlands; creator of the water footprint concept and Scientific Director of the Water Footprint Network. Ashok K. Chapagain was an irrigation engineer in Nepal for more than a decade, has worked as a researcher at the University of Twente and currently works for the WWF in the UK. Maite M. Aldaya works as a consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and is a researcher at the Water Footprint Network.
Data extraction is one of the most critical steps in carrying out a process integration study for managing water usage and discharge. Correct identification of limiting water data during process integration for water minimisation has a significant impact on the water savings achievable for a given process. This paper presents the procedure and heuristics to extract the correct limiting water data from a process plant. In addition to limiting data on pollutant concentration, the paper discusses the optimal data extraction rules pertaining to flowrate of water demand and segregation of mixed streams. The paper also quantifies the consequences of inappropriate data extraction. Two case studies are used to illustrate the insights and consequences of data extraction in water minimisation problems.
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) play an important role within the urban water cycle in protecting receiving waters from untreated discharges. However, WWTPs processes also affect the environment. Life cycle assessment has traditionally been used to assess the impact of direct discharges from WWTPs and indirect emissions related to energy or chemical production. The water footprint (WF) can provide complementary information to evaluate the impact of a WWTP regarding the use of freshwater. This paper presents the adoption of the Water Footprint Assessment methodology to assess the consumption of water resources in WWTPs by considering both blue and grey WFs. The usefulness of the proposed methodology in assessing the environmental impact and the benefits from WWTP discharge to a river is illustrated with an actual WWTP, which treats 4,000 m3·d-1, using three scenarios: no treatment, secondary treatment and phosphorous removal. A reduction of the water footprint by 51.5 % and 72.4 % was achieved using secondary treatment and phosphorous removal, respectively, to fulfill the legal limits. These results indicate that when treating wastewater, there is a large decrease in the grey water footprint compared with the no-treatment scenario; however, there is a small blue water footprint.
Today, clay bricks are facing technological challenges and are uncompetitive compared to materials such as concrete. Their performance must be improved if they are to stand up to the competition. Increasing environmental concerns over the accumulation of unmanaged wastes from agricultural or industrial productions have made these good candidates for incorporation into building materials to improve their performance. This process leads to the formation of pores in the bricks, producing lightweight and sustainable building materials.
This paper reviews the different pore-forming agents from renewable or mineral resources as described in the literature. It also presents the impact of pore-forming agents on the physical, mechanical and thermal properties of clay bricks.
Water regeneration has been widely accepted as an effective mean to further reduce flowrate targets in a water network, and is often employed after the opportunity for flowrate reduction via water reuse/recycle have been exhausted. In this work, a new numerical targeting procedure is proposed to locate the minimum regeneration flowrate that achieves the ultimate fresh water and wastewater targets for both fixed flowrate and fixed load problems. Literature examples are solved to illustrate the applicability of the developed technique.
Material recycle/reuse is one of the key strategies in reducing the consumption of fresh resources in the process industries. Over the past decade, several techniques have been developed to reduce the consumption of specific material utilities such as water and hydrogen. To date, none of the published techniques provides a noniterative, systematic, and graphical technique for identifying a target for minimum usage of the fresh resources ahead of detailed design of the recycle/reuse network. In this paper, we present a rigorous graphical targeting approach to minimize the use of fresh resources by using segregation, mixing, and direct recycle/reuse strategies. First, the problem is formulated mathematically to provide a systematic basis for its solution. Then, dynamic programming techniques are employed to derive the mathematical conditions and characteristics of an optimal solution strategy. These conditions and characteristics are transformed into a graphical form that can be readily used to identify rigorous targets for minimum usage of fresh resources. The graphical technique is also useful in locating a material recycle/reuse pinch point, which provides insightful information on the use of fresh resources, the discharge of unused materials, and the relationships between process streams (sources) and units (sinks). Several test problems are solved to illustrate the ease, rigor, and applicability of the developed targeting technique.
Water network synthesis has been an active area of research for the past one and a half decades. Many think that the technology reached a mature stage in the late 1990s, especially for the insight-based technique based on pinch analysis. The only review for the field dates back to 2000. However, many new papers published in this century reveal that new research gaps are found and more works were carried out to address the limitations of the “old” techniques. The main objective of this review is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the insight-based techniques developed in the 21st century, particularly those developed for single impurity network of the fixed flow rate problems. Comparisons were also made between these recent techniques and those developed for the fixed load problems in the past century. Various flow rate targeting techniques developed for water reuse/recycle, regeneration, and wastewater treatment are reviewed in detail, along with the network design techniques that achieve the established targets. Finally, future research directions are outlined at the end of the review.
This work presents the water cascade analysis (WCA) as a new technique to establish the minimum water and wastewater targets for continuous water-using processes. The WCA is a numerical alternative to the graphical water targeting technique known as the water surplus diagram. The WCA is to the water surplus diagram in water pinch analysis (WPA) as problem table analysis (PTA) is to the grand composite curves in heat pinch analysis. By eliminating the tedious iterative steps of the water surplus diagram, the WCA can quickly yield accurate minimum water targets, pinch point locations, and water allocation targets for a maximum water recovery (MWR) network, thereby offering a key complementary role to the water surplus diagram in the synthesis of water network. As in the case of the water surplus diagram, the WCA is not limited to mass-transfer–based operations and is applicable to a wide range of water-using operations. © 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 50: 3169–3183, 2004
Water is widely used in the process industries as an important raw material. It is also frequently used in the heating and
cooling utility systems. Strict requirements for the products quality and the associated safety issues in manufacturing contribute
to large amounts of high-quality water being consumed by the process industry. Environmental regulations as well as the growing
human population with improved quality of life have led to the growing demand of good quality water. These changes have increased
the need for improved water management and wastewater minimisation. The adoption of water minimisation techniques can effectively
reduce both the fresh water demand and subsequently the effluent generation in the process industry. This results in the reduced
cost for fresh water acquisition and effluent treatment. This paper presents a graphical water integration method based on
Water Pinch Analysis. This method locates various network targets prior to detailed design. A case study is given to demonstrate
how to synthesise a water network for maximum water recovery with this method.
KeywordsWater minimisation-Water recycling and recovery-Water Pinch analysis-Process industry
Water-using processes are typically modeled as either fixed flowrate operations or fixed contaminant load operations. A new method for targeting the minimum freshwater and pinch in a single-contaminant water network is proposed, which can be applied to both kinds of operations. The method consists of plotting separate source and demand composites with flowrate as the horizontal axis and contaminant load unusually as the vertical axis. It is elegant, non-iterative, and can handle hybrid problems where both kinds of operations coexist.To design minimum freshwater networks for fixed flowrate problems, an algorithm is presented based on a newly developed principle of nearest neighbors. The principle simply states that the source streams to be chosen to satisfy a particular water demand must be the nearest available neighbors in terms of contaminant concentration.To design minimum freshwater networks for fixed contaminant load problems, the nearest neighbors algorithm is applied to process units that lie across the pinch. Units that lie entirely on one side of the pinch are satisfied by the cleanest source available on that side of the pinch. In other words, below-pinch units are satisfied by freshwater and above-pinch units are satisfied by the cleanest available stream above the pinch. Designs based on this methodology, apart from meeting the minimum freshwater target, also minimize the water flowing through the process units resulting in reduced network capital cost.
The majority of techniques to determine the minimum water targets based on water pinch analysis (WPA) have assumed freshwater as the sole utility that exists at zero concentration. In practice, regenerated water and externally outsourced water such as rainwater, river water, snow, and imported spent water may exist at varieties of concentrations and can be used to reduce freshwater utility. This paper presents new procedures to establish the minimum flow rate targets for multiple water utilities using the source and sink composite curves. The work offers significant new insights into systematic placement of multiple new utilities through water outsourcing in the context of WPA
Brick Leads the Way in Sustainability Stakes
BDA, 2013. Brick Leads the Way in Sustainability Stakes. Brick Development Association, United Kingdom, London.
Sustainable Design through Process Integration: Fundamentals and Applications to Industrial Pollution Prevention, Resource Conservation, and Profitability Enhancement
- M M El-Halwagi
El-Halwagi, M.M., 2011. Sustainable Design through Process Integration: Fundamentals and Applications to Industrial Pollution Prevention, Resource Conservation, and Profitability Enhancement. Elsevier.
Kirk-othmer Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology
- M M El-Halwagi
- D C Y Foo
El-Halwagi, M.M., Foo, D.C.Y., 2014. Process synthesis and integration. In: Seidel, A.,
Bickford, M. (Eds.), Kirk-othmer Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology. John
Wiley and Sons.
Grey Water Footprint Accounting: Tier 1 Supporting Guidelines. Value of
- N A Franke
- H Boyacioglu
- A Y Hoekstra
Franke, N.A., Boyacioglu, H., Hoekstra, A.Y., 2013. Grey Water Footprint Accounting:
Tier 1 Supporting Guidelines. Value of Water Research Report. Series No. 65.
Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- A Y Hoekstra
Hoekstra, A.Y., 2015. Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability. Chapter 7: the Water Footprint of Industry. Elsevier Inc.
Water Quality Assessments -a Guide to Use of Biota, Sediments and Water in Environmental Monitoring
- Y P Wang
- R Smith
Wang, Y.P., Smith, R., 1994. Wastewater minimisation. Chem. Eng. Sci. 49, 981e1006.
WHO, 1996. Water Quality Assessments -a Guide to Use of Biota, Sediments and
Water in Environmental Monitoring, second ed.