Participants
Functional Units “Water Treatments” and “Environmental Analysis”
Contacts
J.L. Casas López (jlcasas@ual.es)
Funds:
LIFE Environment and Resource Efficiency, EU. (LIFE18 ENV/ES/000165)
Current Situation:
In progress
Summary
The LIFE ULISES project aims to improve conventional reclamation processes through a set of innovative technologies that allow the production of value-added resources from wastewater, such as vehicular biofuel, agricultural biofertilizers and water suitable for reuse. The project seeks to reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint associated with water treatment, increasing the efficiency of a conventional wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) by integrating different technologies in each of the main lines (water, gas and mud).
During the project, the following low-cost technologies will be implemented at the El Bobar WWTP (Almería):
- Biogas enrichment with ABAD Bioenergy® system to produce a renewable biofuel for vehicles. (Aqualia, Energylab)
- PUSH anaerobic pretreatment combined with advanced aeration control to reduce energy consumption by half in the purification process. (Aqualia)
- Photo-Fenton solar disinfection treatment to produce regenerated water to be reused in irrigation. (Ciesol – UAL)
- Mud enzymatic hydrolysis treatment to obtain a quality agricultural biofertilizer (CETIM, Aqualia)
- Struvite recovery system of concentrates by means of direct osmosis-based process (CETIM)
All these innovative technologies will reduce the electrical consumption of the El Bobar sewage plant and, therefore, minimize its environmental impact and carbon footprint.
Objectives:
The main objective of the LIFE ULISES project is to demonstrate the viability of a set of technologies to improve the resources efficiency of the wastewater treatment plants. This will include: an anaerobic aeration pretreatment process to reduce energy demand, an upgrade process to increase biogas production, an enzymatic hydrolysis and membrane-based struvite precipitation for the use of sludge as fertilizer and a tertiary treatment based in solar energy for water reuse.
All these processes will be tested and validated in a pilot plant located in El Bobar, Almera, Spain.