Abstract
Sludge pre-treatments are emerging as part of the disposal process of solid by-products of wastewater purification. One of their benefits is the increase in methane production rate and/or yield, along with higher loading capacities of existing digesters. In this study, we report the performance of a pilot-scale compartmentalized digester (volume of 18.6 m3) that utilized a mild thermal pre-treatment at 70 °C coupled with hydrogen peroxide dosing. Compared with a reference conventional anaerobic digester, this technique allowed an increased organic loading rate from 1.4 to 4.2 kg volatile solids (VS)/(m3d) and an increment in the solids degradation from 40 to 44%. To some extent, these improvements were promoted by the solubilization of the tightly-bound fraction of the extracellular polymeric substances to looser and more accessible fractions without the formation of refractory compounds. In sum, our results suggest that this pre-treatment method could increase the treatment capacity of existing digesters without significant retrofitting.
Highlights
Population growth and increase in the coverage of sanitation are factors that increase the volume of waste activated sludge (WAS) to be treated
We examined to what extent mild thermal pre-treatment provoked an increase in the WAS hydrolysis rate, which in turn allowed a substantial increase in applicable organic loading rate (OLR) in a compartmentalized digester, combining the advantages of the two treatment approaches
The effects of pre-treatment temperature, exposure time, and peroxide dose on biodegradation, kCH4, sCOD, E. coli, capillary suction time (CST), and volatile solids (VS) degradation were studied in a series of three batch experiments
Summary
Adrian Gonzalez 1, *, Hongxiao Guo 1 , Oscar Ortega-Ibáñez 2 , Coert Petri 3 , Jules B. van Lier 1 , Merle de Kreuk 1 and Alexander Hendriks 4.
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