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Evaluating Sustainable Development Pathways for Protein- and Peptide-Based Bioadsorbents for Phosphorus Recovery from Wastewater
Mayer, Brooke K
Mayer, Brooke K
Abstract
Recovering phosphate (P) from point sources such as wastewater effluent is a priority in order to alleviate the impacts of eutrophication and implement a circular economy for an increasingly limited resource. Bioadsorbents featuring P-binding proteins and peptides offer exquisite P specificity and sensitivity for achieving ultralow P concentrations, i.e., <100 μg P L, a discharge limit that has been implemented in at least one treatment facility in nine U.S. states. To prioritize research objectives for P recovery in wastewater treatment, we compared the financial and environmental sustainability of protein/peptide bioadsorbents to those of LayneRT anion exchange resin. The baseline scenario (reflecting lab-demonstrated performance at a full-scale implementation) had costs that were 3 orders of magnitude higher than those for typical wastewater treatment. However, scenarios exploring bioadsorbent improvements, including increasing the P-binding capacity per unit volume by using smaller P-selective peptides and nanoparticle base materials and implementing reuse, dramatically decreased median impacts to $1.06 m and 0.001 kg CO equiv m; these values are in line with current wastewater treatment impacts and lower than the median LayneRT impacts of $4.04 m and 0.19 kg CO equiv m. While the financial viability of capturing low P concentrations is a challenge, incorporating the externalities of environmental impacts may provide a feasible path forward to motivate ultralow P capture.
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Date
2023-10-19
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Publisher
ACS
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Keywords
techno-economic assessment (TEA)
Citation
Hutchison JM, Hussein FB, Mayer BK. Evaluating Sustainable Development Pathways for Protein- and Peptide-Based Bioadsorbents for Phosphorus Recovery from Wastewater. Environ Sci Technol. 2023 Oct 31;57(43):16317-16326. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.3c04016. Epub 2023 Oct 19. PMID: 37856833; PMCID: PMC10620995