Towards Sustainable Reuse of Gas-To-Liquid Biosludge for Industrial Crops Production

Abstract

As the world moves to achieve sustainable development goals (SDG) by 2030, the search for economic ways of waste recovery is becoming a priority in the growth of any economy. Qatar, an arid land and the home of a heavily active oil and gas industry, is a producer of large amounts of wastewater, greenhouse gas emissions and large consumer of fertilizers. Industrial biosludge results as a waste product of the wastewater treatment process. The use of industrial biosludge as organic fertilizer can help restore arable land and create symbioses across sectors. Thus, the aim of this paper is to create synergy by reusing wastewater and biosludge as a soil enhancer for industrial crop production. Industrial cash crops are non-food crops used in the manufacturing industry, such as cotton, rubber, etc., that typically compete with land needed for food production. The trade-off becomes more significant when dealing with an arid region with limited water and land resources such as Qatar. Therefore, this work introduces agricultural sustainability indicators to select the best industrial crop to grow in arable land. The most feasible crop to grow will be chosen based on a systems analysis. The analysis is carried based on the system interaction between the sludge, wastewater, energy, land, and crop production. A case study of the gas-to-liquid (GTL) industrial biosludge is analyzed using the method to demonstrate its effectiveness.