Wastewater - Turning Problem to Solution

Table 2.3: Overview of other resources that can be recovered from wastewater, with examples of locations where implementation has been done at full scale.

Potential products and their applications

Relevant industries for product applications

Location of full-scale examples

Resource

Cellulose

• raw material for paper production • soil conditioner • fuel for biomass combustion plants • feedstock for fermentation • ingredient in asphalt and biocomposites (Mussatto and Van Loosdrecht 2016; Kehrein et al. 2020; Khan et al. 2022; Liu et al. 2022) Used in the production of: • polymers • solvents • pesticides • rubber • paint • biodiesel • food preservatives and flavours (Worwąg and Kwarciak Kozłowska 2019; Kehrein et al. 2020; Elhami et al. 2022;) Alginate polymers that can be used to make: • printing paste • fireproofing and waterproofing fabrics • seed coating • concrete coating • medical products • jewellery (Kehrein et al. 2020; Technical University Delft 2020) Bioplastics used in: • food packaging • composting bags • hygiene products packaging

• pulp and paper • energy • agriculture • construction • chemicals

• Geestmerambacht wastewater treatment plant, the Netherlands (Crutchik et al. 2018; Palmieri et al. 2019)

Volatile fatty acids

• food and beverages • agriculture • chemicals • energy • pharmaceuticals

• Carbonera wastewater treatment plant, Italy (Frison et al. 2013; Longo et al. 2017) • Wuxi, China (Liu et al. 2018) • Verona, Italy (Crutchik et al. 2018)

Extracellular polymeric substances

• pharmaceutical • food and beverages • textile • agriculture • pulp and paper • construction industry

• Zutphen and Epe, the Netherlands (Dutch Water Sector 2020)

Polyhydroxyalkanoates

• packaging • fast-moving consumer goods

• Manresa wastewater treatment plant, Spain (Larriba et al. 2020) • El Torno wastewater treatment plant, Spain (Akyol et al. 2020) • Carbonera wastewater treatment plant, Italy (Conca et al. 2020)

• agriculture • horticulture

• industrial packaging (Prajapati et al. 2021)

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