Integrating Water-Based Energy Solutions in Industrial Design for Sustainable Manufacturing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13052/dgaej2156-3306.4135Keywords:
Water–energy recovery system, industrial wastewater, hydraulic energy recovery, specific energy consumption, techno-economic assessment, NSGA-II optimization, sustainable manufacturingAbstract
The research elaborates on a Water–Energy Recovery System (WERS) that has been developed as a sustainable manufacturing enhancer by extracting hydraulic energy from industrial wastewater networks. The study uses an extensive dataset of a Full-Scale Wastewater Treatment Plant from six important industrial areas of Iran, and the framework goes through extensive data preprocessing which consists of noise reduction, normalization, and extraction of the main indicators like Specific Energy Consumption (SEC) and Flow Power Ratio (FPR) for the evaluation of hydraulic–energy relationships. Hydraulic head estimation, power calculation, and multi-criteria ranking that considers flow stability, installation feasibility, and cost-effectiveness are the methods used to unearth the potential recovery locations. The WERS that comprises of a pump-as-turbine arrangement for hydraulic energy conversion is also backed by storage and smart control units, and the measurement of environmental and economic performance is done through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) integrated with Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA). Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) is the one that performs the multi-objective optimization by maximizing the annual recovered energy and minimizing the total system cost. The outcomes show a total recoverable energy potential of 6.8 GWh from 613 Hm3 of the industrial wastewater, the Caspian region being the highest contributor (3.2 GWh). The configured WERS with optimization results in a power of 31,110.72 kW, CO2 reduction of 2.23 × 108 kg annually, and strong economic viability indicated by payback and cost–benefit metrics. These results accentuate the remarkable potential of water-based energy recovery as a large-scale solution of future low-carbon and resource-efficient industrial operations.
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