Scientists have shown that using mud from waste water treatment plants as a partial alternative fuel can enable cement factories to reduce their CO2 emissions and comply with the Kyoto Protocol, as well as posing no risk to human health and being profitable. These are the results of an environmental impact assessment.
Dependency on oil and coal could be coming to an end. Researchers from the Rovira i Virgili Univ. (URV) have analyzed the environmental and human health impacts of an alternative fuel that solves various problems simultaneously. This is the solid waste from the water treatment plants of large cities.
The scientists have carried out the first study into this method at a cement plant in Vallcarca (Catalonia), which has been producing cement for more than 100 years, and they confirm in the latest issue of the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research that it is “the best option for getting rid of mud that would have had to be dumped elsewhere, while also powering the plant”. R & D Magazine
“As this mud is already waste, burning it does not enter into the atmospheric CO2 emissions assigned to each country under the Kyoto Protocol”, José Luis Domingo, lead author of the study and director of the Toxicology and Environmental Health Laboratory at the URV, tells SINC. Science Daily
The Catalan plant, at which the study was done, has now substituted 20% of its fossil fuel energy for the fuel from waste water treatment plant mud. That 20% has led to a 140,000 tonne reduction in CO2 emissions between 2003 and 2006, which has impacts on both the environment and the health of people living near the plant. With the decrease in pollution, especially CO2, the potential deaths from exposure to chemical pollutants will have been reduced greatly. The study shows that using this green fuel would reduce the cancer rate by 4.56 per million inhabitants, which is good news for more than just the cement industry.
However, the researchers are hesitant to say that using the mud will be beneficial for all cement plants, claiming that it is important that each plant carry out its own studies. However, if anything can be gleaned from this, it is that using mud from waste water treatment plants in cement factories is “a very good solution.” PlanetSave.com
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