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DOI 10.1007/s11367-015-0920-9
Received: 30 June 2014 / Accepted: 13 June 2015 / Published online: 30 June 2015
# Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015
Abstract
Purpose Various fluoride adsorbents have been studied for
removal of excess fluoride from drinking water to meet the
World Health Organization (WHO) Guideline value of
1.5 mg/L. Production of these adsorbents emits contaminants
that can affect human health and the environment, but the
extent of these impacts is currently unknown. This study evaluates the environmental impacts of four low-cost and easy to
use adsorbents: activated alumina, aluminum oxide amended
wood char, bone char, and treated alum waste.
Methods The environmental impacts of these adsorbents were
evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA). The life cycle
stages considered were raw material acquisition, adsorbent
manufacturing, and waste management. The functional unit
was defined as the quantity of adsorbent necessary to reduce
the fluoride concentration of 100,000 L of water from 10 mg/L
to the World Health Organization recommended drinking water
level of 1.5 mg/L. Eco-indicator and the Tool for Reduction and
Assessment of Chemicals and other Environmental Impacts
(TRACI) were used to interpret the environmental impacts.
Results and discussion The results indicate that the environmental impacts of these adsorbents vary greatly using a common functional unit of treating 100,000 L (100 m 3) of
fluoride-impacted water. A key determining factor for the
Responsible editor: Sonia Valdivia
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s11367-015-0920-9) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.
* Teshome L. Yami
Teshome.L.Yami-1@ou.edu
1
1 Introduction
It is estimated that more than 200 million people worldwide
consume water with fluoride concentrations above the World
Health Organization (WHO) recommended threshold of
1.5 mg/L (Amini et al. 2008). Consumption of water with
fluoride above this concentration affects human health, ranging from dental to skeletal fluorosis (Dissanayaka 1991;
Fawell et al. 2006). Other health disorders include muscle
fiber degeneration, neurological symptoms, repeated miscarriage or stillbirth, and male sterility (Maheshwari 2006). These
conditions can be physically debilitating and painful.
In most cases, fluoride in groundwater is geogenic, i.e., it
results from local geological formations that are naturally rich
in fluoride (Apambire et al. 1997). For such areas, it is important to either find an alternative water source or to implement
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fluoride removal techniques. Treatment methods such as coagulation, adsorption, membrane processes, and electrolytic
defluoridation have been investigated for removal of excess
fluoride from drinking water (Fawell et al. 2006; Ayoob et al.
2008; Mohapatra et al. 2009). Previous studies indicate that
adsorption is currently the best option for fluoride removal,
especially for developing countries, due to its high efficiency
and low cost of operation and maintenance (Jagtap et al.
2012). However, the production of common fluoride adsorbents has potential negative health and environmental impacts
such as cancer risks, respiratory infections, and global
warming (Classen et al. 2009; Martin and Griswold 2009).
These impacts should be scientifically modeled and estimated.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development indicated that environmental impact should be
evaluated for proposed activities that are likely to have significant adverse impacts on the environment (Montalembert et al.
1992). In accordance with this principle, the focus of this work
is to present a life cycle assessment (LCA) of adsorbents for
fluoride removal that illustrates the environmental impacts of
the adsorbents. The aim of LCA is to perform a comprehensive analysis of the life cycle of a product, including raw
material acquisition, manufacturing, use, and waste management (ISO 2006a). LCA can help to select processes and
technologies that have lower environmental impacts. For
example, Gabarrell et al. (2012) compared the environmental
impacts of textile dye treatment processes and identified a
process with environmental advantages using LCA.
In this study, the Bora district in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia
in East Africa was used as the study area with corresponding
model inputs coming from this location. This area was selected
due to the high naturally occurring fluoride concentrations in
groundwater which is the main source of drinking water, observed fluoride health impacts among the residents, and also the
current implementation of some fluoride treatment technologies
in the region (Rango et al. 2012; Brunson and Sabatini 2014).
Four adsorbents were considered in this analysis: (1) commercially available activated alumina (-Al2O3); (2) aluminum oxide amended wood char, produced by firing wood in a furnace
and impregnating it with aluminum oxide; (3) bone char produced by charring cow bone, with the main constituent being
hydroxyapatite; and (4) a waste product from alum production,
referred to hereafter as Btreated alum waste.^
The study was performed using the protocol of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14040/44,
which consists of four phases: (1) goal and scope definition,
(2) life cycle inventory, (3) life cycle impact assessment, and
(4) interpretation (ISO 2006a, b). The objective of this study
was to provide a better understanding of environmental impacts associated with fluoride adsorbents through the quantification and comparison of impacts. This understanding will
provide a greater contribution towards solving the global
drinking water crisis in a way that minimizes the potential
2 Methods
2.1 Goal and scope definition
The goal of this LCA was to compare the environmental impacts of four fluoride adsorbents suitable for emerging regions:
activated alumina, aluminum oxide amended wood char, bone
char, and treated alum waste, and to identify the life cycle stages
or processes associated with these adsorbents that have the
largest negative impacts. The functional unit was defined as
the quantity of adsorbent necessary to reduce the fluoride concentration of 100,000 L of water from 10 mg/L to the WHO
recommended drinking water level of 1.5 mg/L (WHO 2011).
An initial fluoride concentration of 10 mg/L was selected in this
study since the mean fluoride concentration in wells in the Rift
Valley of Ethiopia has been reported to 10 mg/L (Rango et al.
2012). The scope of the study included all stages from cradle to
grave except the use phase, which was determined to be common for all adsorbents. These stages included raw material
acquisition, adsorbent manufacturing, transportation, and waste
management (Fig. 1). It was assumed that during use, the adsorbents are packed in a column through which fluoridecontaining water is passed until an effluent fluoride concentration of 1.5 mg/L is reached. Then, the spent adsorbents are
removed from the column and taken to a waste pile for disposal.
The use phase was excluded from the analysis since (i) it is
exactly the same for all four materials and (ii) the total waste
emissions associated with this stage are negligible.
2.2 Life cycle inventory
A life cycle inventory (LCI) of inputs and outputs of materials
during raw material acquisition, manufacturing, and disposal
of the fluoride adsorbents was obtained using the Ecoinvent v.
2.2 databases (Ecoinvent Center 2010) and a literature review.
SimaPro v. 7.3.3 was used to build life cycle models. A mass
balance method was used to estimate the system input and
output data when appropriate datasets were not available from
Ecoinvent (Table S1 and Section 2 calculations in the
Electronic Supplementary Material).
The fluoride adsorption capacity at an equilibrium dissolved fluoride concentration of 1.5 mg/L (referred to hereafter as Q1.5, with units of mg F/g adsorbent) is a crucial factor
for comparing the magnitude of environmental impacts, because the quantity of adsorbent required for fluoride removal
(the functional unit) is governed by the fluoride adsorption
capacity. The Q1.5 is pertinent to field applications since
1.5 mg/L is the WHO recommended fluoride treatment goal.
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Fig. 1 Flow diagrams showing steps for raw material acquisition, manufacturing, use, and waste management for four fluoride adsorbents
Using Langmuir isotherm parameters reported in the literature, a range of Q1.5 values was estimated for each adsorbent
using the Langmuir isotherm (Eq. (1)):
Q1:5 mg=g
Qmax K C e
1 K C e
C o C e V
Q1:5
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Table 1
Adsorbent
Activated alumina
0.8
1063
Bone char
1.71
496
0.13
3.4
6538
250
3
The process results in alum waste containing excess sulfuric acid (pH 3.5) and large volumes of water. These properties
are undesirable for fluoride adsorption and thus the waste
requires pH adjustment and thermal treatment at a temperature
ranging from 100 to 700 C in a furnace for 1 h (Nigussie et al.
2007). The thermally treated alum waste is later neutralized
using 0.1 M NaOH, packaged in woven bags, and transported
to POU sites.
2.2.2 Assumptions
The following assumptions were made in this LCA:
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
&
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enables grouping of the categories to better understand the impacts to the major impact categories of damage to human
health, eco-system quality, and resources.
In Eco-indicator, the human health damage category includes the following impact categories: climate change, ozone
layer depletion, carcinogenic substances, respiratory effects
(organics), respiratory effects (inorganics), and ionizing radiation. The ecosystem quality damage category includes the
following impact categories: land use, acidification/eutrophication, and ecotoxicity. The resources damage category includes the depletion of fossil fuel and depletion of minerals
impact categories.
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Fig. 3 Damage assessments for the adsorbents at each life cycle stage.
Abbreviations used are activated alumina (AA), aluminum oxide
amended wood char (AOWC), bone char (BC), and treated alum waste
(TAW)
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1284
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use of a different aluminum amendment process, TchomguiKamga et al. (2010) produced an aluminum treated wood char
with a Q1.5 of 1.1 mg/gan eightfold increase compared to
the Q1.5 value of 0.13 mg/g reported in Table 1. In addition,
Du et al. (2014) synthesized a high efficiency aluminum
(hydr) oxide with Q1.5 of 22 mg/ga tremendous increase
compared to the Q1.5 of activated alumina reported in Table 1.
These results indicate that significant improvements in Q1.5
are possible for aluminum oxide amended wood char. This is
thus targeted as an important focus for future research.
1286
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