Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment

The world’s supply of fresh water is finite and threatened by pollution such as the wastewater discharged from industries. Lately, the use of membrane system has received increasing attention for wastewater treatment. Though the membrane performance are usually determined, its performance from the s...

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Main Author:	Mahmood, Salwa
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2016
Subjects:	TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
Online Access:	http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77903/1/SalwaMahmoodPFKM2016.pdf
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id	my-utm-ep.77903
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-utm-ep.779032018-07-18T04:11:19Z Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment 2016-02 Mahmood, Salwa TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery The world’s supply of fresh water is finite and threatened by pollution such as the wastewater discharged from industries. Lately, the use of membrane system has received increasing attention for wastewater treatment. Though the membrane performance are usually determined, its performance from the sustainability perspective has received less attention. In line with the Malaysian government policy, the membrane system used for wastewater treatment needs to be scrutinized to ensure its sustainability according to the Triple Bottom Line aspects including environmental, social and economic. Previously, several tools or frameworks have been developed for assessing sustainability. However, most of the available tools assess membrane usage phase only without considering other phases of life cycle. This research aims to identify influencing parameters for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment. In addition, a methodology for assessing the sustainability of membrane system was developed using fuzzy logic approach. It enables the assessment in the range between sustainable and non-sustainable membrane system. Life Cycle Assessment model was also developed to analyze the environmental burdens on the membrane system. GaBi software was employed to identify the parameters involved that cross the system boundary. The system boundary selected was from cradle-to-grave which consists of materials, fabrication process, transportation, usage and end of life phases. There were 29 parameters selected in the analysis. A Graphical User Interface was constructed using MATLAB platform, which was embedded with fuzzy linguistic calculation. A case study consists of a typical membrane system was successfully assessed by using the developed methodology. The results indicated that the sustainability level of the hollow fiber membrane module was high with an overall index value of 0.73. Fabrication process phase needs more attention in terms of sustainability as its index values were 0.27, 0.31, and 0.58 for environmental, social, and economic, respectively. For validation purposes, the results of the assessment were compared with the existing methodologies called ReCiPe and EcoIndicator99. However, the result from ReCiPe approach was limited to environmental aspect only. As for the social aspect, the findings were compared with the EcoIndicator99 approach. The results showed that the fuzzy evaluation method is able to assess the sustainability level of membrane system at par with the one obtained from EcoIndicator99. 2016-02 Thesis http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77903/ http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77903/1/SalwaMahmoodPFKM2016.pdf application/pdf en public http://dms.library.utm.my:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:97583 phd doctoral Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
institution	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
collection	UTM Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
spellingShingle	TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery Mahmood, Salwa Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
description	The world’s supply of fresh water is finite and threatened by pollution such as the wastewater discharged from industries. Lately, the use of membrane system has received increasing attention for wastewater treatment. Though the membrane performance are usually determined, its performance from the sustainability perspective has received less attention. In line with the Malaysian government policy, the membrane system used for wastewater treatment needs to be scrutinized to ensure its sustainability according to the Triple Bottom Line aspects including environmental, social and economic. Previously, several tools or frameworks have been developed for assessing sustainability. However, most of the available tools assess membrane usage phase only without considering other phases of life cycle. This research aims to identify influencing parameters for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment. In addition, a methodology for assessing the sustainability of membrane system was developed using fuzzy logic approach. It enables the assessment in the range between sustainable and non-sustainable membrane system. Life Cycle Assessment model was also developed to analyze the environmental burdens on the membrane system. GaBi software was employed to identify the parameters involved that cross the system boundary. The system boundary selected was from cradle-to-grave which consists of materials, fabrication process, transportation, usage and end of life phases. There were 29 parameters selected in the analysis. A Graphical User Interface was constructed using MATLAB platform, which was embedded with fuzzy linguistic calculation. A case study consists of a typical membrane system was successfully assessed by using the developed methodology. The results indicated that the sustainability level of the hollow fiber membrane module was high with an overall index value of 0.73. Fabrication process phase needs more attention in terms of sustainability as its index values were 0.27, 0.31, and 0.58 for environmental, social, and economic, respectively. For validation purposes, the results of the assessment were compared with the existing methodologies called ReCiPe and EcoIndicator99. However, the result from ReCiPe approach was limited to environmental aspect only. As for the social aspect, the findings were compared with the EcoIndicator99 approach. The results showed that the fuzzy evaluation method is able to assess the sustainability level of membrane system at par with the one obtained from EcoIndicator99.
format	Thesis
qualification_name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.)
qualification_level	Doctorate
author	Mahmood, Salwa
author_facet	Mahmood, Salwa
author_sort	Mahmood, Salwa
title	Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
title_short	Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
title_full	Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
title_fullStr	Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
title_full_unstemmed	Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
title_sort	methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment
granting_institution	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
granting_department	Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
publishDate	2016
url	http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77903/1/SalwaMahmoodPFKM2016.pdf
_version_	1747817859302555648

Methodology for assessing the sustainability of hollow fiber membrane system for wastewater treatment

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