Sustainable Environmental Engineering

Walter Z. Tang, Mika Sillanpää

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781119028376
• eBook ISBN: 9781119085584
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Environmental Management
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The important resource that explores the twelve design principles of sustainable environmental engineering

Sustainable Environmental Engineering (SEE) is to research, design, and build Environmental Engineering Infrastructure System (EEIS) in harmony with nature using life cycle cost analysis and benefit analysis and life cycle assessment and to protect human health and environments at minimal cost. The foundations of the SEE are the twelve design principles (TDPs) with three specific rules for each principle. The TDPs attempt to transform how environmental engineering could be taught by prioritizing six design hierarchies through six different dimensions. Six design hierarchies are prevention, recovery, separation, treatment, remediation, and optimization. Six dimensions are integrated system, material economy, reliability on spatial scale, resiliency on temporal scale, and cost effectiveness. In addition, the authors, two experts in the field, introduce major computer packages that are useful to solve real environmental engineering design problems. 

The text presents how specific environmental engineering issues could be identified and prioritized under climate change through quantification of air, water, and soil quality indexes. For water pollution control, eight innovative technologies which are critical in the paradigm shift from the conventional environmental engineering design to water resource recovery facility (WRRF) are examined in detail. These new processes include UV disinfection, membrane separation technologies, Anammox, membrane biological reactor, struvite precipitation, Fenton process, photocatalytic oxidation of organic pollutants, as well as green infrastructure. Computer tools are provided to facilitate life cycle cost and benefit analysis of WRRF. This important resource:

•    Includes statistical analysis of engineering design parameters using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)

•    Presents Monte Carlos simulation using Crystal ball to quantify uncertainty and sensitivity of design parameters

•    Contains design methods of new energy, materials, processes, products, and system to achieve energy positive WRRF that are illustrated with Matlab

•    Provides information on life cycle costs in terms of capital and operation for different processes using MatLab

Written for senior or graduates in environmental or chemical engineering, Sustainable Environmental Engineering defines and illustrates the TDPs of SEE. Undergraduate, graduate, and engineers should find the computer codes are useful in their EEIS design. The exercise at the end of each chapter encourages students to identify EEI engineering problems in their own city and find creative solutions by applying the TDPs. For more information, please visit www.tang.fiu.edu.  

1
Renewable Resources and Environmental Quality

Sun sustains every life on Earth.

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OBJECTIVES

• To present renewable energy such as solar, biomass, and wind
• To quantify hydrological, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles
• To provide unit data on human demand and footprints
• To quantitatively describe the uncertainty of the carrying capacity of Earth by using SPSS
• To calculate C, N, P, water, energy, and ecological footprints
• To define nine planetary boundaries
• To explain peak oil and phosphorus in terms of mineral depletion
• To calculate air, water, and soil quality indexes

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1.1 Renewable Resources and Energy

Free water and energy have sustained human life on Earth in the past million years because water can be harvested from the sky and energy can be produced from solar, biomass, and wind. Since the Industrial Revolution in 1781, however, nonrenewable fossil energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas has become the major power source for human economic activities. For example, environmental engineering infrastructure system (EEIS) such as centralized water treatment plant (WTP) and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) are mostly powered by fossil fuels and have become symbols of modern life. Due to the economy of scale, centralized EEIS was designed to fit for all because unit cost of water and wastewater produced decreases with the increasing plant capacity. As EEIS ages, however, maintenance becomes more and more expensive. Under climate change and sea level rise, retrofitting existing WWTP may cost more than building new plants. For example, Miami‐Dade Water and Sewer Department (MD WASD) plans spend $6 billion dollar to increase resiliency of three WWTPs with total average flow rate of 300 MGD in next 20 years which could be much more expensive than building new plants within the same budget.

Currently, the average electricity compositions in the United States contributed by coal, natural gas, nuclear, and renewables are 33, 33, 20, and 14, respectively. Among the other renewable energy sources, wind, biomass, solar, and geothermal energy consist of 4.7, 1.6, 1.0, and 0.4% of the total energy portfolio, respectively. Oil provides almost 100% of transportation energy. Solar energy is the only primary energy continuously arriving on Earth at a rate of 1361 W/m². Each day, about 174 peta‐watts (10¹⁵ W) of sunlight hits the planet Earth. Assuming Earth to be a black body, its mean temperature witho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Renewable Resources and Environmental Quality
• 2 Health Risk Assessment
• 3 Twelve Design Principles of Sustainable Environmental Engineering
• 4 Integrated and Interconnected Systems
• 5 Reliable Systems on a Spatial Scale
• 6 Resiliency on Temporal Scale
• 7 Efficiency of Renewable Materials
• 8 Efficiency of Renewable Energy
• 9 Prevention
• 10 Recovery
• 11 Separation
• 12 Treatment
• 13 Green Retrofitting and Remediation
• 14 Optimization through Modeling and Simulation
• 15 Life Cycle Cost and Benefit Analysis
• Index
• End User License Agreement