Water Out Shit In: a new paradigm for resource recovery

Phosphate is the most essential nutrient that must be recovered from waste streams in the future, because the easily minable phosphorus rock reserves will be depleted within 50 to 100 years. For an efficient recovery and reuse, a waste water flow with a high concentration and a low volume is needed. However, the present system of production, collection, transport and treatment of sanitary waste water is aimed at safe disposal of waste water and focussed on health and minimisation of environmental effect. This resulted in a diluted, large volume of sanitary waste water from which the resource recovery is less efficient. To accommodate the new requirement of recovery of nutrients, a novel approach combining the health and environment requirements with the recoverynecessity is needed.A new approach “Water Out Shit In” (WOSI) is proposed in this perspective paper.Application results in a single concentrated flow of waste water with a high concentration of organic load. Main feature of the WOSI approach is its system wide approach addressing all elements of the urban waste water chain from production to transportation to treatment and recovery. WOSI starts at the individual houses, ends at the resource recovery and reuse. In each stage, the main question is: how to remove water or prevent it from entering and how to increase the organic load.The chain starts in the houses. Reducing water consumption of the biggest sanitary waste water producers, i.e. the toilet, the shower and the washing machine, is a potentially effective step in this approach. Household and kerbside organic waste should be added into the sanitary sewer as much as possible. A small diameter gravitational in-house sewer is proposed to be used for collecting and transporting such highly-loaded flow.Within the transportation from household to the treatment, the storm water collection system could be disconnected from sanitary sewer system for preventing further dilution.The chain ends at the waste water treatment, which will be transformed into a resource recovery center via integrating several novel biotechnologies. Overall, a new paradigm for urban infrastructure and inner installation serving resource recovery is emerging

Levensduurvoorspelling van pvc spie‐mof‐verbindingen

Bij het falen van een drinkwaterleiding spelen de verbindingen tussen de leidingsegmenten een onderschatte rol. Dit artikel presenteert een stappenplan om het falen van een pvc spie‐mof‐verbinding te voorspellen. De eerste stap is het selecteren van de kandidaten voor conditie bepaling. De tweede is het daadwerkelijk bepalen van de conditie door de spleet tussen de leidingen inwendig te meten. De derde stap is de analyse van meetgegevens, waarna een beslissing kan worden genomen voor verdere actie. Tenslotte wordt een tijdstip bepaald voor een volgende inspectie

Haalbaarheidstudie: regenwater opvangen en benutten op luchthaven Schiphol

Voor een effectieve bescherming van beschikbare (zoet)waterbronnen is het opvangen en benutten van regenwater op regionale schaal noodzakelijk, evenals het vergroten van de regionale zelfvoorzienendheid. Deze studie op het terrein van luchthaven Schiphol laat zien dat regenwateropvang van verschillende oppervlakten haalbaar is, maar dat voor volledige dekking een vrij grote berging noodzakelijk is

Validation of Non-residential Cold and Hot Water Demand Model Assumptions

AbstractExisting guidelines related to the water demand of non-residential buildings are outdated and do not cover hot water demand for the appropriate selection of hot water devices. Moreover, they generally overestimate peak demand values required for the design of an efficient and reliable water installation. Recently, a procedure was developed based on the end-use model SIMDEUM to derive design rules for peak demand values of both cold and hot water during various time steps for several types and sizes of non-residential buildings, i.e. offices, hotels and nursing homes. In this paper, the assumptions of building standardisation, on which the design rules are based, are validated. This was done with measurements of cold and hot water demands on a per second base and with surveys. The good correlation between the simulated water demand patterns and the measured patterns indicates that the basis of the design rules, the SIMDEUM simulated standardised buildings, is solid. Surveys were held to investigate whether the construction of the standardised buildings based on the dominant variable corresponds with practice. Surveys show that it is difficult to find relations to equip the standardised buildings with users and appliances. However, the validation proves that with a proper estimation of the number of users and appliances in only the dominant functional room of the standardised buildings, SIMDEUM renders a realistic cold and hot water diurnal demand pattern. Therefore, the new design rules based on these standardised buildings lead to reliable and improved designs of building installations and water heater capacity, resulting in more hygienic and economical installations

Validation of non-residential cold and hot water demand model assumptions

Existing guidelines related to the water demand of non-residential buildings are outdated and do not cover hot water demand for the appropriate selection of hot water devices. Moreover, they generally overestimate peak demand values required for the design of an efficient and reliable water installation. Recently, a procedure was developed based on the end-use model SIMDEUM to derive design rules for peak demand values of both cold and hot water during various time steps for several types and sizes of non-residential buildings, i.e. offices, hotels and nursing homes. In this paper, the assumptions of building standardisation, on which the design rules are based, are validated. This was done with measurements of cold and hot water demands on a per second base and with surveys. The good correlation between the simulated water demand patterns and the measured patterns indicates that the basis of the design rules, the SIMDEUM simulated standardised buildings, is solid. Surveys were held to investigate whether the construction of the standardised buildings based on the dominant variable corresponds with practice. Surveys show that it is difficult to find relations to equip the standardised buildings with users and appliances. However, the validation proves that with a proper estimation of the number of users and appliances in only the dominant functional room of the standardised buildings, SIMDEUM renders a realistic cold and hot water diurnal demand pattern. Therefore, the new design rules based on these standardised buildings lead to reliable and improved designs of building installations and water heater capacity, resulting in more hygienic and economical installations.</p

Discolouration in drinking water systems: A particular approach

The quality of drinking water in the Netherlands meets high standards as is annually reported by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM)(Versteegh and Dik, 2006). Also the water companies themselves report in the voluntary Benchmark that water quality is one of the least discriminating factors as all the companies ‘comply generously’(VEWIN, 2004). Despite this reported high quality, water companies still report between 3000 and 6000 customer complaints about discolouration annually. The report on the Benchmark mentions that of all the parameters turbidity is causing most of the water quality failures. These figures are based on the data in the report system used to communicate the outcomes of the legal testing programme to the inspectorates (REWAB, 2004). The most common process associated with the phenomenon of discolouration is historically the corrosion of cast iron pipes as is suggested on the site of the Drinking Water Inspectorate in the UK (DWI, 2007). On many websites of Dutch water companies, however, particles originating during treatment are also identified as the source of deposits in the network. Many authors who studied the corrosion of cast iron in potable water systems conclude that this is a major cause of discolouration. (Smith et al., 1997; McNeill and Edwards, 2001). Recent studies (Prince et al., 2003) have suggested that more sources for particles besides from corrosion play a role in the discolouration problem. A large proportion of the customer contacts that drinking water supply companies across the world receive, stem from complaints on the occurrence of discoloured water in the drinking water distribution system (DWDS). Fig 1-1 shows a typical breakdown of customer contacts for a UK water company (Vreeburg and Boxall, 2007). Fig 1-2 shows some examples of discoloured water supplied to customers, that have led to the complaints.Civil Engineering and Geoscience

Grenzen verleggen in distributie

Civil Engineering and Geoscience

Virtueel ontwerpen van de gebouwriolering met Simdeum

Van het drinkwaterverbruik op het detailniveau van een tappunt in een woning weten we heel veel door de modellering met behulp van Simdeum, en daarmee ook van de afvalwaterproductie. Met Simdeum is het mogelijk een goede schatting te maken van de hoeveelheid, en vooral ook van de hoedanigheid – de temperatuur en de samenstelling – van het afvalwater. Daarmee is Simdeum zeer geschikt om ‘virtuele’ ontwerpen van de sanitaire installatie te toetsen, zoals een installatie met waterbesparende apparatuur en een voedselrestenvermaler waarmee de concentratie vaste stoffen in het afvalwater sterk toeneemt

Beyond smart cities: de drink- watervraag in de toekomst

Met ‘smart cities’ wordt meestal bedoeld dat we door gebruik van ICT ‘alles’ goed in beeld hebben. Voor het strategische asset management van de waterbedrijven is echter meer nodig: inzicht in toekomstige ontwikkelingen is onontbeerlijk. Om verder te gaan dan de smart city, kijken we in dit artikel naar de drinkwatervraag in verscheidene mogelijke toekomsten. Hoe kunnen de drinkwatervraag en afvalwaterstroom veranderen richting 2050? En hoe kunnen we daarmee omgaan