| Summary: | Global warming – mainly caused by carbon emissions – is a major global challenge for human sustainable development. Carbon emission reduction and resource recovery from sludge treatment are critical to the carbon neutralisation of future wastewater treatment plants. This paper analyses the key elements of carbon emissions during sludge treatment and disposal, namely energy source carbon emissions, fugitive carbon emissions and carbon compensation. Of the four mainstream process routes analysed in this work, anaerobic digestion + dry incineration is identified as the route with the highest potential for reducing carbon emissions in the future. Finally, based on a review of current international research hotspots, the future development directions for sludge treatment and resource recovery are discussed. This paper thus provides a comprehensive understanding of the current sludge treatment processing routes and serves as a reference for process route selection and future research on carbon neutralisation. HIGHLIGHTS
The key elements of carbon emissions during sludge treatment are analysed.;
Four mainstream process routes of sludge treatment from the perspective of carbon neutralisation are analyzed.;
The route with the highest potential for reducing carbon emissions is proposed.;
Current international research hotspots of resource recovery from sludge are overviewed.;
Innovative low-carbon technologies for resource recovery are expected.;
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