Effects of diverse Pre-treatment methods on the sludge digestion and methane production in combined mesophilic anaerobic and thermophilic aerobic sludge digestion process

Abstract

In this study, various influent sludge pre-treatment methods were adopted to investigate their effects on the sludge digestion and methane production in combined mesophilic anaerobic and thermophilic aerobic sludge digestion process. A lab-scale sewage sludge digestion process was operated during 4 phases using different feed sludge pre-treatment strategies. In phase 1, feed sludge was supplied without any pre-treatment. In contrast, in phases 2, 3 and 4, thermal, thermal-alkaline and long time alkaline treatment (7 days) were applied to influent sludge, respectively. With sludge pre-treatment, TCOD removal was drastically increased from 44% to 76% from phases 1 to 4, respectively. Also, pre-treatment of feed sludge significantly improved the methane production rate of MAD, showing an increment from 101 to 165-256mL/L/day. Meanwhile, TCOD removal and methane production at phase 4 were not increased, compared to those at phase 3. Based on the experimental results, it was concluded that pre-treatment of feed sludge significantly increases the efficiency of sludge digestion and thermal-alkaline method was the most effective method among the pre-treatment methods examined.