Extracellular polymeric substances and dewaterability of waste activated sludge during anaerobic digestion

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (9) ◽  
pp. 1555-1560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fenxia Ye ◽  
Xinwen Liu ◽  
Ying Li

Anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge was conducted to gain insight into the mechanisms underlying change in sludge dewaterability during its anaerobic digestion. Unexpectedly, the results indicated that sludge dewatering properties measured by capillary suction time only deteriorated after 10 days of anaerobic digestion, after which dewaterability recovered and remained stable. The loosely bound extracellular polymeric substance (LB-EPS) content increased three-fold after 20 days of anaerobic digestion, and did not change significantly during the remaining 30 days. The tightly bound EPS (TB-EPS) content reduced slightly after 20 days of anaerobic digestion, and stabilized during the last 30 days. Polysaccharides (PS) and proteins (PN) content in LB-EPS increased after 10 days of anaerobic digestion. However, PS and PN contents in TB-EPS decreased slightly. The relationship analysis showed that only LB-EPS correlated with dewaterability of the sludge during anaerobic digestion.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9700
Author(s):  
Zicong Liao ◽  
Yongyou Hu ◽  
Yuancai Chen ◽  
Jianhua Cheng

Phosphorus is a nonrenewable and irreplaceable limited resource, and over 90% of phosphorus in influenttransfers into sludge in wastewater treatment plants. In this study, thermally activated peroxydisulfate (TAP) treatment was combined with struvite precipitation to enhance waste activated sludge (WAS) dewaterability and phosphorus recovery. TAP simultaneously enhanced dewaterability and solubilization of WAS. The optimal conditions of TAP treatment were PDS dosage 2.0 mmol/g TSS, 80 °C, pH 4.0~7.0 and 40 min, which enhanced dewaterability (capillary suction time (CST) from 94.2 s to 28.5 s) and solubilization (PO43−-P 177.71 mg/L, NH4+-N 287.22 mg/L and SCOD 10754 mg/L). Radical oxidation disintegrated tightly bound extracellular polymeric substances (TB-EPS) and further released bound water. The acidification effect neutralized the negative surface charge of colloid particles. Compared with thermal hydrolysis, TAP effectively promoted the release of PO43−, NH4+ and SCOD. Cation exchange removed most Ca and Al of the TAP treated supernatant. The optimal conditions of struvite precipitation were Mg/P 1.4 and pH 10.0, which achieved phosphorus recovery of 95.06% and struvite purity of 94.94%. The income obtained by struvite adequately covers the cost of struvite precipitation and the cost of WAS treatment is acceptable.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4874
Author(s):  
Gan Chin Heng ◽  
Mohamed Hasnain Isa ◽  
Serene Sow Mun Lock ◽  
Choon Aun Ng

Anaerobic digestion (AD) appears to be a popular unit operation in wastewater treatment plant to treat waste activated sludge (WAS) and the produced methane gas can be harvested as renewable energy. However, WAS could inhibit hydrolysis stage during AD and hence pre-treatment is required to overcome the issue. This paper aimed to study the effect of electrochemical pre-treatment (EP) towards efficiency of AD using titanium coated with ruthenium oxide (Ti/RuO2) electrodes. The investigation has been carried out using in-house laboratory batch-scale mesophilic anaerobic digester, mixed under manipulation of important operating parameters. Optimization was performed on EP using response surface methodology and central composite design to maximize sludge disintegration and dewaterability. By operating at optimal conditions (pH 11.65, total solids 22,000 mg/L, electrolysis time 35 min, current density 6 mA/cm2, and 1000 mg/L of sodium chloride), the pre-treated WAS in terms of mixed liquor volatile suspended solids (MLVSS) removal, soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD), capillary suction time (CST) reduction, and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) were 38%, 4800 mg/L (increased from 935 mg/L), 33%, and 218 mg/L, respectively. Following AD, the volatile solids (VS) removal and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal by EP were enhanced from 40.7% and 54.7% to 47.2% and 61.5%, respectively, at steady-state. The biogas produced from control and electrochemical pre-treated WAS were in the ranges of 0.12 to 0.17 and 0.2 to 0.24 m3/kg VSfed, respectively, and the volume of biogas produced was 44–67% over the control. Based on the results obtained, suitability of EP for WAS prior to AD was confirmed.


Author(s):  
Malwina Tytła

A comprehensive analysis of the effects obtained in the process of ultrasonic disintegration (UD) of waste activated sludge (WAS), was conducted. Sludge samples were collected periodically from Central Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Gliwice (Poland) and disintegrated in the two ultrasonic devices of different construction and technical parameters, i.e., WK-2010 (A) and ultrasonic washer (B). The experiments were performed under a constant energy supply per sludge volume EV = 160 kWh·m−3. The direct and technological effects, i.e., after UD and anaerobic digestion (AD) were investigated, respectively. Statistical analysis showed that characteristics and parameters of the WAS, which affects the magnitude of the direct effects create the following sequence: TS (total solids), VS (volatile solids), ΔT (temperature increase) > EPS (extracellular polymeric substances) > SCOD (soluble chemical oxygen demand) > CST (capillary suction time) > NTOT (total nitrogen), PTOT (total phosphorus) > pH. Whereas, in the case of technological effects, the above sequence was as follows: TS, VS > CST > NTOT, PTOT > pH. Ultrasonic disintegration of WAS prior to AD increased total biogas production (from 13.0% to 19.7%) and reduced the content of TS (from 4.1% to 8.2%) and VS (5.8% to 9.5%) in comparison to the control sample. This confirms the usefulness of ultrasonic disintegration as an effective method of sludge digestion intensification. The obtained results showed that changes in the characteristics of WAS have a significant impact on the magnitude of the effects of ultrasonic disintegration, especially TS, VS, ΔT, EPS, SCOD and CST. Concluding, it can be inferred that the most promising conditions for ultrasonic pretreatment conducted under constant energy supply per sludge volume, are: low power, long sonication time, large surface area of the emitter, and high increase of sludge temperature while conducting the process.


Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emna Feki ◽  
Audrey Battimelli ◽  
Sami Sayadi ◽  
Abdelhafidh Dhouib ◽  
Sonia Khoufi

Anaerobic digestion (AD), being the most effective treatment method of waste activated sludge (WAS), allows for safe disposal. The present study deals with the electro-Fenton (EF) pretreatment for enhancing the WAS biogas potential with low-cost iron electrodes. The effect of pretreatment on the physicochemical characteristics of sludge was assessed. Following EF pretreatment, the pH, conductivity, soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), and volatile fatty acids (VFA) increased to 7.5, 13.72 mS/cm, 4.1 g/L, and 925 mg/L, respectively. Capillary suction time (CST) analysis highlighted the dewaterability effect of EF on WAS, as demonstrated by the decrease in CST from 429 to 180 s following 30 min of pretreatment. Batch digestion assays presented an increase in the biogas yield to 0.135 L/g volatile solids (VS) after 60 min of EF pretreatment in comparison to raw sludge (0.08 L/g VS). Production of biogas was also found to improve during semi-continuous fermentation of EF-pretreated sludge conducted in a lab-scale reactor. In comparison to raw sludge, EF-pretreated sludge produced the highest biogas yield (0.81 L biogas/g VS) with a high COD removal rate, reaching 96.6% at an organic loading rate (OLR) of 2.5 g VS/L. d. Results revealed that the EF process could be an effective WAS disintegration method with maximum recovery of bioenergy during AD.


2021 ◽  
pp. 125035
Author(s):  
Zhang-Wei He ◽  
Wen-Jing Yang ◽  
Yong-Xiang Ren ◽  
Hong-Yu Jin ◽  
Cong-Cong Tang ◽  
...  

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