Simulated process integration of wastewater electrooxidation with recuperated micro gas turbine for energy recovery

Electrooxidation (EO) is a promising wastewater treatment technology that is plagued with high energy consumption. This study simulates the energy recovery potential from EO by process integration with recuperated micro gas turbine (RMGT). Gainful utilization of hydrogen produced at cathode is key to it. Percent recoverable energy (PRE) from EO would be strongly influenced by the cathodic current efficiency (CCE) and interelectrode potential (IP) and was likely to vary from a high of 46% to a low of 14%. Simulations suggested that process integration with RMGT could potentially recover 72.4% of this energy - 30.7% as electricity and 41.7% as thermal energy in the form of hot water at 353 K. This translated to 6.3%-9.7% electricity saved in EO besides recovered thermal energy. Energy dynamics was found to be highly sensitive to recuperator performance of the RMGT. Better recuperator performance made energy recovery through process integration more electricity driven at the cost of recovered heat and total energy recovery. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.