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Wastewater treatment for carbon capture and utilization

Nature Sustainability volume 1, pages 750–758 (2018)Cite this article

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A paradigm shift is underway in wastewater treatment as the industry heads toward ~3% of global electricity consumption and contributes ~1.6% of greenhouse gas emissions. Although incremental improvements to energy efficiency and renewable energy recovery are underway, studies considering wastewater for carbon capture and utilization are few. This Review summarizes alternative wastewater treatment pathways capable of simultaneous CO2 capture and utilization, and demonstrates the environmental and economic benefits of microbial electrochemical and phototrophic processes. Preliminary estimates demonstrate that re-envisioning wastewater treatment may entirely offset the industry’s greenhouse gas footprint and make it a globally significant contributor of negative carbon emissions.

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Fig. 1: The different CCU processes that can be integrated with wastewater treatment.
Fig. 2: Preliminary estimates of CCU benefits from an example integrated MECC–microalgae process compared with a conventional activated-sludge process.
Fig. 3: The low-hanging fruit on co-location of emission-point-source and water-resource recovery plants.

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Acknowledgements

L.L. and Z.J.R. were supported by the US National Science Foundation under award CEBT-1834724.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Lu Lu, Catherine A. Peters & Zhiyong Jason Ren

  2. Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Lu Lu & Zhiyong Jason Ren

  3. Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Lu Lu & Zhiyong Jason Ren

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jeremy S. Guest

  5. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Xiuping Zhu

  6. Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Greg H. Rau

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Contributions

Z.J.R. and L.L. designed the study. L.L, J.S.G. and Z.J.R. performed data analysis. L.L., J.S.G., C.A.P., X.Z., G.H.R. and Z.J.R. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhiyong Jason Ren.

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Supplementary Analysis, Supplementary Tables 1, 2 and Supplementary References 1–9

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Lu, L., Guest, J.S., Peters, C.A. et al. Wastewater treatment for carbon capture and utilization. Nat Sustain 1, 750–758 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0187-9

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