Improving the sludge disintegration efficiency of sonication by combining with alkalization and thermal pre-treatment methods

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (10) ◽  
pp. 1809-1816 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Şahinkaya ◽  
M. F. Sevimli ◽  
A. Aygün

One of the most serious problems encountered in biological wastewater treatment processes is the production of waste activated sludge (WAS). Sonication, which is an energy-intensive process, is the most powerful sludge pre-treatment method. Due to lack of information about the combined pre-treatment methods of sonication, the combined pre-treatment methods were investigated and it was aimed to improve the disintegration efficiency of sonication by combining sonication with alkalization and thermal pre-treatment methods in this study. The process performances were evaluated based on the quantities of increases in soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD), protein and carbohydrate. The releases of soluble COD, carbohydrate and protein by the combined methods were higher than those by sonication, alkalization and thermal pre-treatment alone. Degrees of sludge disintegration in various options of sonication were in the following descending order: sono-alkalization > sono-thermal pre-treatment > sonication. Therefore, it was determined that combining sonication with alkalization significantly improved the sludge disintegration and decreased the required energy to reach the same yield by sonication. In addition, effects on sludge settleability and dewaterability and kinetic mathematical modelling of pre-treatment performances of these methods were investigated. It was proven that the proposed model accurately predicted the efficiencies of ultrasonic pre-treatment methods.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 5919-5923

(Being produced in vast quantity as one of by-product from cassava starch processing chains, cassava pulp has great potential for energy recovery by harnessing biogas through anaerobic digestion (AD). This study aims to enhance biogas production by comparative investigation in batch mode digestion. 5%TS w/v of cassava pulp mixed with mill effluent were pre-treated with 10 molar potassium hydroxide (KOH), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), and calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) solution for 6 hours contact time. Effects of different alkaline pre-treatment on cassava substrate were assessed in total dissolved solid (TDS), soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), Volatile Fatty Acids to Alkalinity ratio (VFA/TA), and reducing sugars. Daily accumulated biogas yield was taken as final indicator of the effect of different pre-treatment. KOH pre-treatment in pH 11 resulted highest dissolved solid 13.07 mg/L, and improved soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) formation up to 75.61% (480,000 mg/L) than control substrate. The experiment revealed peak biogas production by KOH pre-treated substrate was found at day 6 after digestion executed, and achieved 546 ml. The finding proves out of different pre-treatment method applicable to cassava pulp, KOH pre-treatment could realistically increase biogas yield for cassava mills. Biogas production increased up to 101%, 92%, and 70% using KOH, Ca(OH)2 and NaOH respectively. However, when future provision to the technology for AD system and design is concerned, the choice of highly reactive alkali could lead to complication in the system.


2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Da Ros ◽  
C. Cavinato ◽  
F. Cecchi ◽  
D. Bolzonella

In this study the anaerobic co-digestion of wine lees together with waste activated sludge in mesophilic and thermophilic conditions was tested at pilot scale. Three organic loading rates (OLRs 2.8, 3.3 and 4.5 kgCOD/m3d) and hydraulic retention times (HRTs 21, 19 and 16 days) were applied to the reactors, in order to evaluate the best operational conditions for the maximization of the biogas yields. The addition of lee to sludge determined a higher biogas production: the best yield obtained was 0.40 Nm3biogas/kgCODfed. Because of the high presence of soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) and polyphenols in wine lees, the best results in terms of yields and process stability were obtained when applying the lowest of the three organic loading rates tested together with mesophilic conditions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 531 ◽  
pp. 528-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na Wei

Anaerobic digestion is an economic and environmentally friendly technology for treating the biomass material-sewage sludge, but has some limitations, such as the low efficient biogass production. In this paper ultrasound was proposed as pre-treatment for effective sludge anaerobic digestion. Sludge anaerobic digestion experiments with ultrasonic pretreatment was investigated. It can be seen that this treatment effectively leaded to the increase of soluble chemical oxygen demand(SCOD) and volatile fatty acids(VFA)concentration. High concentration of VFA leaded to a increase in biogas production. Besides, the SV of sludge was reduced and the settling characteristics of sludge was improved after ultrasonic pretreatment. It can be concluded that sludge anaerobic digestion with ultrasonic pretreatment is an effective method for biomass material transformation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Vergine ◽  
J. Zábranská ◽  
R. Canziani

This paper presents the results of lab-scale experiments on low temperature thermal pre-treatment (less than 100 °C) prior to anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Two heating ways, microwave heating (MH) and conventional heating (CH), and two types of sludge, primary and waste activated sludge, were compared under the same experimental conditions. The degree of solubilisation produced by MH and CH up to 72, 82 and 93 °C was firstly estimated. For both types of heating, increase in soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) caused by the pre-treatment was about 14% on waste activated sludge and only 3% on primary sludge. The final temperature of 72 °C resulted as the most cost-effective in terms of additional soluble COD per unit of energy required. Subsequently, five series of biochemical methane potential mesophilic assays were run in 120 mL serum bottles on sludge samples pre-treated at 72 °C. When compared with control reaction vessels, no significant differences were noticed in net methane production of pre-treated primary sludge, whereas a relevant increase occurred regarding the pre-treated waste activated sludge. It was also observed that the trend of methane content in biogas during the batch tests can be described by a second order polynomial.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjana Simonič

AbstractLaboratory scale filtration tests utilizing leachate were conducted to investigate fouling and filtration performance of nanofiltration membranes. The work presented in this study is conducted on real samples rather than model water. Physico-chemical analyses showed that the leachate contained a lot of organic substances, exceeding 20000 mg/L O2 expressed as chemical oxygen demand. Proper pre-treatment method must be chosen in order to reduce fouling index. Coagulation pre-treatment using poly-aluminium chloride was chosen. Two thin film polysulfone membranes were used, purchased by Osmonic Desal. The focus of this research is to assess the influence of the particle size and zeta-potential of the colloidal fraction in leachate on nanofiltration performance. The isoelectric point of both membranes was 4.7 and 4.3, respectively. The fouled membranes were negatively charged over the pH range with isoelectric point shifting to the left (lower pH) indicating the foulant material mainly not charged. It was confirmed by its zeta-potential, measured at -2 mV.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 706-711 ◽  

<p>WEEE is a fast-growing waste stream that includes potentially hazardous substances, but also valuable secondary raw materials, which can be recovered by adequate recycling and recovery treatment. In the last years, the research interest has moved from the conventional recycling (recovery of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastic, glass and other “mass relevant” fractions presented in WEEE), to the innovational recycling, aimed to recover trace elements, such as critical metals (CMs) and rare earth elements (REEs). Currently, the majority of CMs and REEs are lost during the pre-treatment processes. In this paper, an overview of the most relevant e-waste categories and products in terms of CMs and REEs presence, a description of currently applied pre-treatment methods and fate of the observed group of metals during pre-processing phase, as well as general recommendation in order to avoid losses of CMs and REEs within the WEEE treatment chain, are elaborated.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 664 ◽  
pp. 111-116
Author(s):  
Ya Nan Hou ◽  
Chun Xue Yang ◽  
Ai Juan Zhou ◽  
Ai Jie Wang

This study investigated the effect of aeration rates on the hydrolysis process of Waste Activated Sludge (WAS) with thermophilic aerobic microbes and explained by the change of solubilization of lipids, carbohydrates and proteins in sludge under different aeration rates (0.03 vvm, 0.05 vvm, 0.07 vvm, 0.09 vvm, 0.11 vvm). The results revealed that with the increase of aeration rate, the accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in the treated sludge was decreased. Only 2 142 mg COD/L was accumulated at the ventilation rate of 0.11 vvm, while the highest accumulation which was 4 088 mg/L at the ventilation rate of 0.05 vvm. Further investigation showed that under optimal aeration rate which was 0.05 vvm, theromophilic aerobic microbes facilitated the organism hydrolysis and increased the biodegradability of WAS significantly. The concentration of carbohydrates was improved remarkably from 70 mg COD/L to 560 mg COD/L compared with the control (the process without aeration) at 65°C. Meanwhile, the concentration of protein was increased stably due to the high activity of protease, and reached the peak of 1 320 mg COD/L after 72h, then decline at the later period. The maximal soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) was 5 600 mg/L and VFAs was 4 088 mg COD/L, which would be beneficial to the followed digestion process. Therefore, appropriate aeration is efficient to improve the accumulation of soluble organic matters and VFAs in WAS.


2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 228-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Prandota Trzcinski ◽  
Chong Wang ◽  
Dongqing Zhang ◽  
Wui Seng Ang ◽  
Li Leonard Lin ◽  
...  

A biosorption column and a settling tank were operated for 6 months with combined municipal and industrial wastewaters (1 m3/hr) to study the effect of dissolved oxygen (DO) levels and Fe3+ dosage on removal efficiency of dissolved and suspended organics prior to biological treatment. High DO (&gt;0.4 mg/L) were found to be detrimental for soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) removals and iron dosing (up to 20 ppm) did not improve the overall performance. The system performed significantly better at high loading rate (&gt;20 kg COD.m−3.d−1) where suspended solids and COD removals were greater than 80% and 60%, respectively. This is a significant improvement compared to the conventional primary sedimentation tank, and the process is a promising alternative for the pre-treatment of industrial wastewater.


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