Low-Carbon Treatment and Resource Recovery of Municipal Wastewater and Sludge
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 December 2026 | Viewed by 388
Editors
Interests: biological nitrogen removal; anammox; biofilm; denitrifying phosphorus removal; activated sludge
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: organic solid waste treatment; anaerobic digestion; aerobic composting, quorum sensing; antibiotic resistance genes
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The conventional activated sludge process, developed more than a century ago, remains the most widely applied biological treatment technology in wastewater treatment plants worldwide. However, with the continuous increase in wastewater generation and increasingly stringent discharge standards, conventional wastewater and sludge treatment systems are facing growing challenges, including limited treatment efficiency, high energy consumption, low volumetric loading capacity and insufficient sludge valorization. In addition, large quantities of excess sludge are produced, which often require energy-intensive post-treatment and disposal, thereby further increasing the carbon footprint of the wastewater sector. These limitations have made it increasingly difficult for traditional biological processes to meet the urgent need for efficient, low-carbon wastewater treatment and sludge resource recovery in the context of carbon neutrality goals. In recent years, rapid advances in environmental biotechnology have stimulated substantial innovation in wastewater and sludge treatment, driving a transition from conventional pollutant removal toward energy- and resource-oriented recovery and attracting increasing attention from the research community.
This Special Issue focuses on recent advances, emerging technologies and practical applications related to the low-carbon treatment and resource recovery of municipal wastewater and sludge. We warmly welcome the submission of high-quality original research articles and critical review papers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Novel technologies for nitrogen and phosphorus removal from municipal wastewater;
- Low-carbon wastewater treatment processes based on anammox;
- Resource recovery from wastewater and sewage sludge, such as biogas/biomethane, hydrogen, volatile fatty acids, fertilizers, nutrients and biopolymers;
- Microbial fuel cells and bio-electrochemical systems;
- Occurrence, removal and risk assessment of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater and sludge treatment systems.
Dr. Hong Wang
Dr. Yanzeng Li
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- nitrogen and phosphorus removal
- sewage sludge biological treatment
- anammox
- anaerobic digestion
- aerobic composting
- microbial electrochemistry
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