Hydrothermal processing for resource recovery from municipal wastewater treatment plants

Hydrothermal processing is a promising solution for recovering valuable substances and reducing waste volume from municipal wastewater treatment processes. This chapter presents an overview of hydrothermal processing, emphasizing the process mechanism, including chemical reactions and mass transfer, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the process. This chapter also highlights the opportunities for energy and resource recovery. Moreover, recent developments in the process and current research will be discussed with the technology and social readiness to reveal the possible development of the process in the future. Challenges and barriers to commercialization and solutions will also be provided. The findings reveal that advanced thermal hydrolysis is a promising technology to overcome the current challenges in thermal hydrolysis. The addition of a catalyst enhances the existing hydrothermal process significantly.