A Life Cycle Assessment of Alternative Wastewater Treatment Processes at Forward Operation Bases (FOBs)

The objective of this work is to perform LCAs three wastewater treatement alternatives at battalion-sized (500 soldier) FOBs. Three systems will be explored: traditional wastewater treatment of combined blackwater and graywater streams using activated sludge and anaerobic digestion (the status quo); MXC treatment of blackwater to produce H2O2 for disinfection of blackwater and graywater; a hybrid system of blackwater treatments with MXCs to produce electricity with graywater disinfection using H2O2 produced offsite. Environmental impacts are assessed using Impact 2002+ midpoint and endpoint categories, primarily reported for human health and environmental impacts. Uncertainity analysis is performed using two techniques. First, a pedigree matrix is developed to identify the highest areas of uncertainties in data. Second, a sensitivity analysis is used to explore the effects on endpoint categories from varying transportation distance, the percentage of wastewater that is reused as nonpotable water, and coagulant doses.