Anaerobic Co-Digestion of Food Waste and Thermal Pretreated Waste Activated Sludge: Synergetic Effect and Energy Assessment

Thermal pretreatment was an effective method to improve the anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge. However its application in China was still hindered by the high energy demand. In order to balance the energy consumption of sludge thermal pretreatment integrated with anaerobic digestion, food waste was introduced as co-substrate to achieve an energy self-sustainable sludge treatment system. Anaerobic biodegradability test was performed using thermal pretreated sludge and food waste in order to clarify the kinetics and mechanism of co-digestion, especially the synergetic effect on specific methane yield. The prominent synergetic effect was an initial acceleration of cumulative methane production by 20.7- 23.8% observed during the first 15 days, and the cumulative methane production of feedstock can be calculated proportionately from its composition. Between the evaluated models, modified Gompertz model presented a better agreement of the experimental results and it was able to describe the synergetic effect, assessed by the relative deviation between theoretical estimation and the experimental results of co-digestion tests. This feature made modified Gompertz model a suitable tool for methane production prediction of mono- and co-digestion. Energy assessment shown that co-digestion with food waste was a sustainable solution to maintain the integration of thermal pretreatment and anaerobic digestion energy neutral or even positive. Besides, the performance of sludge dewatering was a crucial factor for the energy balance.

Microbial Communities Performing Hydrogen Solventogenic Metabolism of Volatile Fatty Acids

Four different physicochemical pretreatments on an anaerobic inoculum used for alcohol production from acetate and butyrate are evaluated. Experiments were conducted in single batches using acetate and butyrate as substrates at 30°C and with a pressurized headspace of pure H2 at 2.15 atm (218.2 MPa). Thermal and acidic-thermal pretreatments lead to higher production of both ethanol and butanol. Modelling shows that the highest attainable concentrations of ethanol and butanol produced were 122 mg L−1 and 97 mg L−1 for the thermal pretreatment (after 17.5 days) and 87 mg L−1 and 143 mg L−1 for the acidic-thermal pretreatment (after 18.9 days). Thermodynamic data indicated that a high H2 partial pressure favoured solventogenic metabolic pathways. Acidic-thermal pretreatment selected a bacterial community more adapted to the conversion of acetate and butyrate into ethanol and butanol, respectively. Thermal-acidic pretreatment was unstable, showing significant variability between replicates. Acidic pretreatment showed the lowest alcohol production.

V2O5 Nanoparticles for Dyes Removal from Water

This paper deals with V2O5 nanoparticles adsorbents which were obtained by thermal pretreatment carried out by increasing the temperature between 90 and 750°C. In order to obtain more detailed information on the surface chemistry of the newly prepared nanoparticles, the characterisation was done by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric investigation technique. The prepared nanoparticles were tested for methylene blue (MB) removal from modelled water solutions. The obtained results indicated that increased MB removal efficiency (93%) and adsorption capacity (27 mg/g) after 40 minutes of adsorption were obtained for V2O5 annealed at 500°C. The applicability and suitability of the two kinetic models were tested and the removal mechanism was proposed.