Use of biochar/persulfate for accelerating the stabilization process and improving nitrogen stability of animal waste digestate

Abstract

In China, the growing amount of digestate from anaerobic digestion produced by animal husbandry is an emerging challenge. A common treatment used to eliminate this digestate is long-term stabilization ponds. However, this process can lead to a shortage of digestate storage space and loss of nitrogen nutrients within the digestate. To alleviate those shortcomings, this study developed an efficient stabilization pond using biochar and persulfate (BC/PS treatment). Using this treatment, the germination index (GI) of the digestate increased from 56% to 85% and the stabilization efficiency increased nearly 2.7 times. In addition, the dehydrogenase activity (DHA) in the BC/PS treatment remained between 0.47 and 0.91 μg/(g·h) across the 40 days, which indicated that BC/PS had a positive effect on microbial inactivation. In the traditional stabilization process (CK treatment), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) decreased from 47.77 mg/L to 0.81 mg/L and ammonium nitrogen almost disappeared. The BC/PS treatment led to the promotion of nitrogen nutrient composition. Particulate total nitrogen (21.49% of total nitrogen) decomposed into dissolved total nitrogen and the DON increased from 47.77 to 58.89 mg/L. The BC/PS treatment showed a faster stabilization time, good microbial inactivation, lower toxicity, and stable nitrogen nutrient composition of the digestate compared to traditional methods.