Life cycle economic assessment of coal chemical wastewater treatment facing the 'Zero liquid discharge' industrial water policies in China: Discharge or reuse?

摘要

Geographical maldistribution of coal and water resource has led to huge water consumption, posing great challenges to the development of coal chemical industries in China. In this study, based on the obtained unit product data of water withdrawal, consumption, and wastewater effluent capacity, the wastewater quantitative information about water quality and relevant energy and reagents consumption for several coal chemical industries were analyzed. Then, the life cycle costs of different types of coal chemical wastewater were analyzed when achieving ICIWD (1st category integrated wastewater discharge) and ZLD (zero liquid discharge) standards. According to the results, the life cycle cost of ICIWD was average 0.94 US$/t water less than that of the wastewater meeting ZLD, because the life cycle boundaries focused on coal chemical industries. Given surface water treatment cost and environment damages value, ICIWD's total cost was 1.07 US$/t water higher than ZLD's. Besides, the consumed water of planning advanced coal chemical projects of 2018 took up 2.8% of total industrial water. Such proportion could even reach over 30% in north and northwest regions. It is suggested that ZLD water policies and water resources appraisal should be introduced to improve and strengthen the rational layout of coal chemical projects.