Abstract
Organic compounds such as methanol are widely used for enhancing denitrification at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to meet effluent water quality permits. On the other hand, methane, which is the main feedstock for industrial methanol production, is also generated during anaerobic digestion in WWTPs, but is often flared to mitigate its greenhouse impacts. The overarching goal herein was to develop a novel continuous process for methanol production from methane using nitrifying activated sludge. The maximum AOB specific methanol production rate using hydroxylamine as electron donor was 1.61 ± 0.15 and 1.27 ± 0.15 mg-COD-CH3OH/(mg-COD-AOB*d), for hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 7.5 h and 2 h, respectively. The corresponding production rate using ammonia as electron donor was 0.31 ± 0.08 mg-COD-CH3OH/(mg-COD-AOB*d) at a HRT of 2 h. These results show that nitrifier-mediated methanol production in a continuous-flow system can enhance the efficiency of WWTPs through internal production of biomethanol for denitrification, while simultaneously minimizing wasteful biogas flaring.
Highlights
There is a global effort to expand the traditional role of wastewater treatment facilities to integrate recovery of resources
In some cases, safety concerns related to methanol storage and handling facilities might preclude the purchase and transport of commercial methanol to water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs), highlighted by the ban of methanol use for denitrification in New York City in the late 2000s
Biogenic production of methanol and in-situ utilization within a WRRF presents a valuable opportunity to reduce the dependence on external carbon sources and enhance overall WRRF sustainability
Summary
There is a global effort to expand the traditional role of wastewater treatment facilities to integrate recovery of resources. These efforts have in the past primarily relied on beneficial reuse of water and biosolids. Recent research has focused on the production of resources including nutrients for fertilizer production (El Diwani et al, 2007; Desmidt et al, 2015), biofuels (Kargbo, 2010), bioplastics
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