Sewage sludge (SS) management remains a challenge across the world. We quantified the potential climate change impacts of eight conventional technology configurations (TCs) for SS treatment and disposal by considering four different energy exchanges and using a life cycle assessment (LCA) model that employed uncertainty distributions for 104 model parameters. All TCs showed large climate change loads and savings (net values ranging from 123 to 1148 kg CO₂-eq/t TS) when the energy exchange was with a fossil-based energy system, whereas loads and savings were approximately three times lower when the energy exchange was with a renewable energy system. Uncertainty associated with the climate change results was more than 100% with fossil-energy exchange and low TS content of SS but was lower for renewable energy. Landfilling had the greatest climate change impact, while thermal drying with incineration had the highest probability of providing better climate change performance than other TCs. The global sensitivity analysis identified nine critical technological parameters. Many of them can be easily measured for relevant SS and technology levels to improve specific estimates of climate change impact. When all scenarios were optimized to the 20% best cases, thermal drying with incineration outperformed the other TCs. This paper contributes to better quantifying the climate change impacts of different technologies used for sludge treatment given changing energy systems and identifies crucial parameters for further technological development.

污水污泥 (SS) 管理仍然是全世界面临的挑战。我们通过考虑四种不同的能量交换并使用生命周期评估 (LCA) 模型对 SS 处理和处置的八种常规技术配置 (TC) 的潜在气候变化影响进行了量化，该模型采用了 104 个模型参数的不确定性分布。所有 TC 均显示出较大的气候变化负荷和节约（净值范围为 123 至 1148 kg CO ₂-eq/t TS) 当能源交换是基于化石的能源系统时，而当能源交换是与可再生能源系统时，负荷和节省大约低三倍。与气候变化结果相关的不确定性超过 100%，其中化石能源交换和 SS 的 TS 含量低，但可再生能源的不确定性较低。填埋场对气候变化的影响最大，而焚烧热干燥最有可能提供比其他 TC 更好的气候变化性能。全球敏感性分析确定了九个关键技术参数。其中许多可以很容易地衡量相关的 SS 和技术水平，以改进对气候变化影响的具体估计。当所有场景都优化到 20% 最好的情况时，焚烧热干燥优于其他 TC。鉴于不断变化的能源系统，本文有助于更好地量化用于污泥处理的不同技术对气候变化的影响，并确定进一步技术发展的关键参数。