Kinetic modelling of anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge and Sherry-wine distillery wastewater: Effect of substrate composition in batch bioreactor

Abstract

Batch thermophilic anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge (SS) and Sherry-wine distillery wastewater (SW-DW) was investigated through biochemical methane potential tests (BMP). The results pointed out that biodegradability and biomethane potential were enhanced proportionally to the percentage of SW-DW of the feedstock, whose soluble biodegradability fraction is 10-fold higher than SS. Specifically, organic matter removal increases from 37 % (employing sole SS as feedstock) to 60 % (employing sole SW-DW as feedstock). SW-DW almost doubles methane yield in comparison to SS (302 ± 15 and 175 ± 9 NL/kg, respectively).A structured kinetic model was developed considering hydrolysis, acidogenic and methanogenic steps of anaerobic digestion. A non-linear multiple-response regression was employed to estimate the kinetic parameters for each feedstock (0%(v/v) SW-DW, 25%(v/v) SW-DW, 50%(v/v) SW-DW, 75%(v/v) SW-DW, and 100%(v/v) SW-DW). The first-order kinetic parameter estimated of the hydrolysis step varies inversely proportional to the percentage of SW-DW content in the feedstock. Whereas, there is no significant influence of feedstock composition on kinetic parameters value regarding acidogenesis and methanogenesis. These results showed that rate–limiting step switched during the fermentation and the addition of SW–DW favours acidogenic and methanogenic steps. In summary, the proposed kinetic model was able to predict batch experimental data, supporting the application of biogas production from anaerobic co-digestion of SS and DW-DW.