Search

Menu
Search
in Resources

An agile benchmarking framework for wastewater resource recovery technologies

99 Views


Abstract

Water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) face growing pressures to balance compliance, sustainability, and cost while adapting to evolving treatment needs. To support research, development, and deployment (RD&D) of innovative technological solutions, we developed an open-access benchmarking framework comprised of 18 plant-wide simulation models. Implemented in QSDsan, the framework is validated against GPS-X™ simulations while capturing distinct system behaviors, treatment performance, energy demand, and operational costs across diverse designs. It offers a rigorous and transparent foundation for comparative technology evaluations, guiding RD&D decision-making and advancing sustainable water management.

Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the EXPOsan repository, https://github.com/QSD-Group/EXPOsan/tree/main/exposan/werf/publication_data.

Code availability

The underlying code for this study is available on Github and can be accessed via this link: https://github.com/QSD-Group/EXPOsan/tree/main/exposan/werf.

References

  1. McCarty, P. L., Bae, J. & Kim, J. Domestic wastewater treatment as a net energy producer–can this be achieved?. Environ. Sci. Technol. 45, 7100–7106 (2011).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Guest, J. S. et al. A new planning and design paradigm to achieve sustainable resource recovery from wastewater. Environ. Sci. Technol. 43, 6126–6130 (2009).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Larsen, T. A., Alder, A. C., Eggen, R. I. L., Maurer, M. & Lienert, J. Source separation: will we see a paradigm shift in wastewater handling?. Environ. Sci. Technol. 43, 6121–6125 (2009).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Henze, M., Gujer, W., Mino, T. & van Loosedrecht, M. Activated sludge models ASM1, ASM2, ASM2d and ASM3. https://doi.org/10.2166/9781780402369 (IWA Publishing, 2006).

  5. Batstone, D. J. et al. The IWA anaerobic digestion model No 1 (ADM1). Water Sci. Technol. 45, 65–73 (2002).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Alex, J. et al. Benchmark simulation model no. 1 (BSM1). Rep. IWA Taskgroup Benchmarking Control Strateg. WWTPs 1, (2008).

  7. Jeppsson, U. et al. Benchmark simulation model no 2: general protocol and exploratory case studies. Water Sci. Technol. 56, 67–78 (2007).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Gernaey, K. V., Jeppsson, U., Vanrolleghem, P. A. & Copp, J. B. Benchmarking of Control Strategies for Wastewater Treatment Plants. https://doi.org/10.2166/9781780401171 (IWA Publishing,2014).

  9. wwtmodels. wwtmodels/Benchmark-Simulation-Models. (2025).

  10. Hydromantis. GPS-X Technical Reference – v8.0. https://www.hydromantis.com/help/GPS-X/docs/8.0/Technical/index.html#CHAPTER%2012.

  11. Products – EnviroSim. https://envirosim.com/products.

  12. Li, Y. et al. QSDsan: an integrated platform for quantitative sustainable design of sanitation and resource recovery systems. Environ. Sci. Water Res. Technol. 8, 2289–2303 (2022).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Tarallo, S., Shaw, A., Kohl, P. & Eschborn, R. A Guide to Net-Zero Energy Solutions for Water Resource Recovery Facilities. https://iwaponline.com/ebooks/book/293/ (2015).

  14. US EPA. Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (CWNS) – 2004 Report and Data (2015).

  15. US EPA. Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (CWNS) – 2008 Report and Data (2015).

  16. US EPA. Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (CWNS) – 2012 Report and Data (2015).

  17. US EPA. Clean Watersheds Needs Survey (CWNS) – 2022 Report and Data (2024).

  18. El Abbadi, S. H. et al. Benchmarking greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. wastewater treatment for targeted reduction. Nat. Water (In press) (2025).

  19. Q. S. D. Group. werf: Benchmark Models for Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRF) in the US. EXPOsan https://github.com/QSD-Group/EXPOsan/tree/werf/exposan/werf (2025).

  20. QSD Group. EXPOsan—EXPOsition of sanitation and resource recovery systems.

  21. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc. Wastewater Engineering: Treatment and Resource Recovery (McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2013).

  22. US EPA. Analysis of Operations & Maintenance Costs for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Systems. (1978).

  23. Otterpohl, R. & Freund, M. Dynamic models for clarifiers of activated sludge plants with dry and wet weather flows. Water Sci. Technol. 26, 1391–1400 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  24. Takács, I., Patry, G. G. & Nolasco, D. A dynamic model of the clarification-thickening process. Water Res. 25, 1263–1271 (1991).

    Google Scholar 

  25. Solon, K. et al. Plant-wide modelling of phosphorus transformations in wastewater treatment systems: Impacts of control and operational strategies. Water Res. 113, 97–110 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  26. Henze, M. et al. Activated sludge model No.2d, ASM2. D. Water Sci. Technol. 39, 165–182 (1999).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Rosen, C., Vrecko, D., Gernaey, K. V., Pons, M. N. & Jeppsson, U. Implementing ADM1 for plant-wide benchmark simulations in Matlab/Simulink. Water Sci. Technol. 54, 11–19 (2006).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Flores-Alsina, X. et al. Modelling phosphorus (P), sulfur (S) and iron (Fe) interactions for dynamic simulations of anaerobic digestion processes. Water Res. 95, 370–382 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  29. Kazadi Mbamba, C., Batstone, D. J., Flores-Alsina, X. & Tait, S. A generalised chemical precipitation modelling approach in wastewater treatment applied to calcite. Water Res. 68, 342–353 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  30. Kazadi Mbamba, C., Tait, S., Flores-Alsina, X. & Batstone, D. J. A systematic study of multiple minerals precipitation modelling in wastewater treatment. Water Res 85, 359–370 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  31. Kazadi Mbamba, C. et al. Precipitation and dissolution. in Generalised Physicochemical Model (PCM) for Wastewater Processes (IWA Publishing, 2022).

  32. Musvoto, E. Integrated chemical–physical processes modelling—I. Development of a kinetic-based model for mixed weak acid/base systems. Water Res. 34, 1857–1867 (2000).

    Google Scholar 

  33. Musvoto, E. V., Wentzel, M. C. & Ekama, G. A. Integrated chemical–physical processes modelling—II. simulating aeration treatment of anaerobic digester supernatants. Water Res. 34, 1868–1880 (2000).

    Google Scholar 

  34. Cortes-Peña, Y., Kumar, D., Singh, V. & Guest, J. S. BioSTEAM: a fast and flexible platform for the design, simulation, and techno-economic analysis of biorefineries under uncertainty. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 8, 3302–3310 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  35. BioSTEAM Development Group. BioSTEAM: the biorefinery simulation and techno-economic analysis modules. https://github.com/BioSTEAMDevelopmentGroup/biosteam (2023).

  36. Seider, W. D. et al. Cost accounting and capital cost estimation. In Product and Process Design Principles 426–485 (Wiley, 2017).

  37. Williams, M. J., Bizier, P., Groman, J. & Tippetts, R. Alkaline stabilization. in Design of Water Resource Recovery Facilities (MOP8) (ed. The Water Environment Federation (WEF)) (McGraw-Hill Education, 2018).

  38. Beecher, N. et al. National U. S. Biosolids Data – FINAL REPORT: Advancing Understanding of Biosolids Management 30 Years after 40 CFR Part 503 and in the Early Stages of PFAS Concerns. https://www.biosolidsdata.org (2023).

  39. Rowles, L. S. et al. Financial viability and environmental sustainability of fecal sludge treatment with pyrolysis omni processors. ACS Environ. Au 2, 455–466 (2022).

    Google Scholar 

  40. Watabe, S. et al. Advancing the economic and environmental sustainability of the newgenerator nonsewered sanitation system. ACS Environ. Au 3, 209–222 (2023).

    Google Scholar 

  41. Feng, J., Li, Y., Strathmann, T. J. & Guest, J. S. Characterizing the opportunity space for sustainable hydrothermal valorization of wet organic wastes. Environ. Sci. Technol. 58, 2528–2541 (2024).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Zhang, X., Arnold, W. A., Wright, N., Novak, P. J. & Guest, J. S. Prioritization of early-stage research and development of a hydrogel-encapsulated anaerobic technology for distributed treatment of high strength organic wastewater. Environ. Sci. Technol. 58, 19651–19665 (2024).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Peter A. Vanrolleghem (Université Laval) for providing valuable insights and advice on wastewater process modeling and plant-wide simulation platform development. We also thank Jianan Feng (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) for sharing compiled data on wastewater treatment process characterization for U.S. facilities. This study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Technologies Office. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of DOE or the U.S. Government. The publisher, by accepting the article to publication, acknowledges that U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Grainger College of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Xinyi Zhang, Saumitra Rai, Zixuan Wang & Jeremy S. Guest

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA

    Yalin Li

  3. Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Jeremy S. Guest

Authors

  1. Xinyi Zhang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Saumitra Rai
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Zixuan Wang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Yalin Li
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jeremy S. Guest
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization: X.Z., Y.L. and J.S.G.; Funding acquisition: J.S.G.; Methodology: X.Z.; Software: X.Z., Y.L. and S.R.; Validation: Z.W.; Visualization: X.Z. and Y.L.; Manuscript writing: X.Z., S.R. and Z.W. in collaboration with all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to
Xinyi Zhang, Yalin Li or Jeremy S. Guest.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Zhang_et_al_npg-CW_Supporting_Information_Submitted

Zhang_et_al_npg-CW_Supporting_Information_Table_S11.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhang, X., Rai, S., Wang, Z. et al. An agile benchmarking framework for wastewater resource recovery technologies.
npj Clean Water (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41545-025-00537-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41545-025-00537-4

Source: Resources - nature.com

Cultivating confidence and craft across disciplines

Focused groundwater recharge is controlled by landscape and climate

This portal is not a newspaper as it is updated without periodicity. It cannot be considered an editorial product pursuant to law n. 62 of 7.03.2001. The author of the portal is not responsible for the content of comments to posts, the content of the linked sites. Some texts or images included in this portal are taken from the internet and, therefore, considered to be in the public domain; if their publication is violated, the copyright will be promptly communicated via e-mail. They will be immediately removed.

Back to Top
Close