Energy production and waste reduction from plastics

废水处理是加拿大城市管理的最重要的工程职责之一。在历史上，废水处理厂与消灭病原体以防止疾病传播有关，现在它们的任务中增加了资源回收。这在一定程度上是由于填埋废物和能源消耗的成本较高，但也是因为废流中塑料的普遍存在。塑料不会生物降解，而是会被碎裂成更小的尺寸。可以在水系统中流动并影响野生动物的大小。最近的趋势也看到消费市场上微粒小于1毫米的微塑料的增加。这些塑料经常用于个人护理产品，并自然地最终进入水处理设施。像厌氧消化这样的系统不能减少污水污泥的塑料含量，这意味着它们要么被填埋，要么通过系统。另一方面，塑料来自天然气，这是一种化石燃料，含有大量的嵌入化学能量。收集这些能源以供使用将提供两个好处，避免向环境释放塑料和从废物中回收能源。后者将自然取代额外的化石燃料使用，并有助于缓解气候变化风险。为了能够使用，塑料必须使用可再生电力或非高峰电力进行升级。通过这种方式，塑料变成了储能的形式，将低需求的电力转化为燃料。该项目调查了将废水处理厂残渣中发现的任何废塑料转化为可用的能源形式的可行性，特别是合成甲烷。

Waste water treatment is one of the most important engineering responsibilities managed by Canadian cities. Historically associated with the destruction of pathogens to prevent the spread of disease, waste water treatment plants are now adding resource recovery to their mandate. This is in part due to the higher costs of landfilling waste and energy consumption but also due to the prevalence of plastics in the waste stream. Plastics do not biodegrade but rather fragment into smaller sizes. Sizes that can become mobile in the water systems and affect wild life. Recent trends have also seen an increase of microplastics, particles less than 1 mm, in the consumer market. These plastics are often used in personal care products and naturally end up at the water treatment facility. Systems such as anaerobic digestion are not able to reduce the plastic content of sewage sludge meaning they will either be landfilled or pass through the system. On the other hand, plastics come from natural gas, a fossil fuel, and contain a significant amount of embedded chemical energy. Harvesting this energy for use would provide two benefits, avoidance of plastic release to the environment and recovery of energy from the wastes. The latter will naturally displace additional fossil fuel use and help mitigate climate change risk. To be usable, the plastics must be upgraded using renewable or off peak electricity. In this manner, the plastics become of form of energy storage, taking low demand electricity and turning it into a fuel. This project investigates the feasibility of converting any waste plastics found in wastewater treatment plant residues to usable forms of energy, in particular synthetic methane.