| Tesis Doctorales de la Universidad de Alcalá |
| VALIDATING FULL SCALE METLAND SOLUTIONS FOR DECENTRALIZED SUSTAINABLE WASTEWATER TREATMENT: TECHNO-ENVIRONMENTAL AND GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS | | Autor/a | Peñacoba Antona, Lorena | | Departamento | Química Analítica,quím.física e Ing.quím | | Director/a | Esteve Núñez, Abraham | | Codirector/a | García Calvo, Eloy | | Fecha de defensa | 12/11/2021 | | Calificación | Sobresaliente Cum Laude | | Programa | Hidrología y Gestión de los Recursos Hídricos (RD 99/2011) | | Mención internacional | Si | | Resumen | In recent decades increasing pressures on natural resources has drastically altered
demographic dynamics and climate change. Currently, different lines of action are being
pursued for the sustainable management and conservation of global water resources. In
the field of wastewater treatment, the problem lies in small population centers where the
scarcity of technical and economic resources compromises the effectiveness of
conventional treatment methods.
METland® technology emerges from the integration of Microbial Electrochemical
Technologies (METs) into constructed wetlands. Integration improves treatment efficiency
by replacing an inert material (gravel) with a biocompatible and electro-conductive
material (ec-biochar or coke). Such designs maximize the transfer of electrons between ecmaterials and electroactive bacteria. This makes full-scale METlands
® a valid, sustainable,
efficient, and robust wastewater treatment solution, with low operation and maintenance
costs, for small and remote population centers.
In this thesis, new strategies have been explored to improve the design and operation of
full-scale METland® systems. A Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) was performed, evaluating the
impacts of different operational modes on each environmental category. To explore the
geospatial application of METlands, a process to evaluate optimal locations for their
implementation was developed. The proposed methodology can be used to help decisionmakers employ METland® worldwide using multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) techniques
applied to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with a final sensitivity analysis (SA) to
optimize and validate the model |
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