Paper Title
Techno-Economic Performance Analysis for Hospital Wastewater Treatment Technologies
Abstract
This paper evaluates the techno-economic feasibility of three hospital wastewater treatment technologies (Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation, Fenton and Photo-Fenton) in reducing the concentration of pharmaceutical grade chemicals compared to the business as usual of their direct release to the following three environmental streams – wetland, river, sea. A shadow pricing modelling methodology is applied for estimating the environmental damage costs for the selected pharmaceutical chemical released to the three environments. Its implementation is demonstrated through a case study for a typical hospital in Turkey, with a hospital capacity of 750 beds and an average hospital effluent flow rate of 300 L/day. The following four scenarios are considered – A) environmental levy for direct release without any treatment, B) environmental levy + shadow pricing of the avoidable environmental cost for direct release without any treatment, C) includes operating costs of the scoped technological intervention and environmental levy on residual untreated effluent release, D) includes shadow pricing of the avoidable environmental cost for direct release of the residual effluent in addition to all costs in Scenario C. The shadow price of estimated annual environmental costs for 100% direct release (Scenario B), was found to be the highest for the wetland environments (largely attributed to the accumulation of the contaminants in stagnant water), followed by river and sea. Among the three treatment technologies, homogenous Fenton appears to offer the most cost-effective intervention, with a return on investment of 346%, 262% and 12% and Internal rate of return of 84%, 64% and 3%, respectively for release to the wetland, river, and sea environments.
Keywords - CWAO; Ecosystem Degradation; Fenton; Hospital Effluent; Shadow Pricing; Techno-Economic