QSDsan: An Integrated Platform for Quantitative Sustainable Design of Sanitation and Resource Recovery Systems

TL;DR

QSDsan is an open-source Python platform for the integrated design, simulation, and analysis of sanitation and resource recovery systems, facilitating rapid evaluation and decision-making under uncertainty.

Contribution

This paper introduces QSDsan, a novel, comprehensive, open-source tool that combines system modeling, techno-economic analysis, and life cycle assessment for sustainable sanitation design.

Findings

Demonstrated utility through sanitation value chain evaluation

Enabled dynamic simulation of wastewater treatment plant

Supported advanced statistical analysis and visualization

Abstract

Sustainable sanitation and resource recovery technologies are needed to address rapid environmental and socioeconomic changes. Research prioritization is critical to expedite the development and deployment of such technologies across their vast system space (e.g., technology choices, design and operating decisions). In this study, we introduce QSDsan - an open-source tool written in Python (under the object-oriented programming paradigm) and developed for the quantitative sustainable design (QSD) of sanitation and resource recovery systems. As an integrated platform for system design, process modeling and simulation, techno-economic analysis (TEA), and life cycle assessment (LCA), QSDsan can be used to enumerate and investigate the opportunity space for emerging technologies under uncertainty, while considering contextual parameters that are critical to technology deployment. We illustrate the core capabilities of QSDsan through two distinct examples: (i) evaluation of a complete sanitation value chain that compares three alternative systems; and (ii) dynamic simulation of the wastewater treatment plant described in the benchmark simulation model no. 1 (BSM1). Through these examples, we show the utility of QSDsan to automate design, enable flexible process modeling, achieve rapid and reproducible simulations, and to perform advanced statistical analyses with integrated visualization. We strive to make QSDsan a community-led platform with online documentation, tutorials (explanatory notes, executable scripts, and video demonstrations), and a growing ecosystem of supporting packages (e.g., DMsan for decision-making). This platform can be freely accessed, used, and expanded by researchers, practitioners, and the public alike, ultimately contributing to the advancement of safe and affordable sanitation technologies around the globe.