The study of potable water treatment process in Algeria (boudouaou station) -by the application of life cycle assessment (LCA)

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment will soon become a compulsory phase infuture potable water production projects, in algeria, especially, whenalternative treatment processes such sedimentation, coagulation sandfiltration and Desinfection are considered. An impact assessment tool istherefore developed for the environmental evaluation of potable waterproduction. in our study The evaluation method used is the life cycleassessment (LCA) for the determination and evaluation of potentialimpact of a drink water station, near algiers (SEAL-Boudouaou(a)). LCArequires both the identification and quantification of materials andenergy used in all stages of the product's life, when the inventoryinformation is acquired, it will then be interpreted into the form ofpotential impact ``eco-indicators 99{''} towards study areas covered byLCA, using the simapro6 soft ware for water treatment process isnecessary to discover the weaknesses in the water treatment process inorder for it to be further improved ensuring quality life. The mainsource shown that for the studied water treatment process, the highestenvironmental burdens are coagulant preparation (30% for all impacts),mineral resource and ozone layer depletion the repartition of theimpacts among the different processes varies in comparison with theother impacts. Mineral resources are mainly consumed during aluminesulfate solution preparation; Ozone layer depletion originates mostlyfrom tetrachloromethane emissions during alumine sulfate production. Itshould also be noted that, despite the small doses needed, ozone andactive Carbone treatment generate significant impacts with acontribution of 10% for most of the impacts.Moreover impacts of energy are used in producing pumps (20-25 GHC) forplant operation and the unitary processes (coagulation, sand filtrationdecantation) and the most important impacts are localized in the sameequipment (40-75 GHC) and we can conclude that:Pre-treatment, pumping and EDR (EDR: 0.-6 0 kg CO2 eq. /produced m(3))are the process-units with higher environmental impacts.Energy consumption is the main source of impacts on climate change.Chemicals consumption (e. g. coagulants, oxidants) are the principlecause of impacts on the ozone layer depletion.Conventional plants: pre-treatment has high GHG emissions due tochemicals consumption.