Life cycle assessment and analysis of heat and power production alternatives from digested sewage sludge

In this thesis, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method has been conducted on two different technologies for incineration of sewage sludge to produce heat and/or power. For this, Gaziantep GASKI Sewage Sludge Incineration Plant based on a fluidized bed combustor (FBC) and a hypothetical cement kiln (CK) facility using sewage sludge as a secondary fuel, were taken as two different case studies. This study aimed to show the environmental burdens of each option from different impact categories aspects, in order to give a clear perspective to decision makers for drawing an environmentally friendly and sustainable sludge disposal policy. The FBC option showed better performance in the global warming category, while another option preceded in human health category regard. CK option has several limitation conditions to compete FBC option like a limitation of sludge feed and the distance of such facility to the wastewater treatment plants. In this thesis, SimaPro IMPACT2002+ software with 15 different impact categories was used as impact assessment method, and the inventories of the systems were characterized and then normalized at the endpoint.