On the environmental benefits of a permeable pavement: metals potential removal efficiency and Life Cycle Assessment

ABSTRACT

Permeable Pavement (PP) represents a good solution to solve stormwater management problems. In this way, the potential removal efficiency of a PP in treating dissolved metals was assessed by performing a monitoring campaign at a lab-scale system. Based on literature experiences, different relatively high-level concentrations of copper and zinc were applied during eight different synthetic rainfall events. Results have shown that the removal rates of Cu and Zn of the lab-scale system range from 85% to 92% and from 65% to 82%, respectively. In addition, batch experiments were carried out on each construction material of the PP highlighting that, among the materials tested, only concrete blocks presented the potential to adsorb the investigated metals. Results confirmed that the adsorption capacity of the blocks is higher in adsorbing Cu (70–90%) than Zn (69–75%). Results from LCA analysis have shown overall minimal long-term, indirect and cumulative impact.

KEYWORDS:

• Stormwater treatment
• metals
• permeable pavement
• adsorption
• LCA

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.