From Grease to Gas: Anaerobic Digestion of Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG) at the Hyperion Treatment Plant

Author(s):  
Ronald N. Palacios ◽  
Steven S. Fan ◽  
Hansong Lee ◽  
Michael A. Soto

Anaerobic digestion of high-strength organic wastes, such as Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG) has become increasingly popular among wastewater treatment facilities in Southern California [1]. In 2010, the City of Los Angeles’ Hyperion Treatment Plant started running its own FOG Digestion Pilot Project. The project injects processed grease trap wastewater (FOG) into one of 16 anaerobic digesters at the facility. A partnership was formed between the Hyperion Treatment Plant (HTP) and Baker Commodities, Inc., a Grease rendering company located in the City of Vernon. They provide processed grease trap wastewater (FOG) to the pilot project. The plan was to load the digester with increasing amounts of FOG and observe the impact. The parameters monitored in the digester during the test are volatile acids, pH, alkalinity, temperature, and gas production in the digester. The pilot project’s objective was to obtain a 10 to 20% increase in gas production. So far those expectations have been exceeded.

2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy T. Kraemer ◽  
David M. Bagley

Abstract Upgrading conventional single-stage mesophilic anaerobic digestion to an advanced digestion technology can increase sludge stability, reduce pathogen content, increase biogas production, and also increase ammonia concentrations recycled back to the liquid treatment train. Limited information is available to assess whether the higher ammonia recycle loads from an anaerobic sludge digestion upgrade would lead to higher discharge effluent ammonia concentrations. Biowin, a commercially available wastewater treatment plant simulation package, was used to predict the effects of anaerobic digestion upgrades on the liquid train performance, especially effluent ammonia concentrations. A factorial analysis indicated that the influent total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) and influent alkalinity each had a 50-fold larger influence on the effluent NH3 concentration than either the ambient temperature, liquid train SRT or anaerobic digestion efficiency. Dynamic simulations indicated that the diurnal variation in effluent NH3 concentration was 9 times higher than the increase due to higher digester VSR. Higher recycle NH3 loads caused by upgrades to advanced digestion techniques can likely be adequately managed by scheduling dewatering to coincide with periods of low influent TKN load and ensuring sufficient alkalinity for nitrification.


1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ole Mark ◽  
Claes Hernebring ◽  
Peter Magnusson

The present paper describes the Helsingborg Pilot Project, a part of the Technology Validation Project: “Integrated Wastewater” (TVP) under the EU Innovation Programme. The objective of the Helsingborg Pilot Project is to demonstrate implementation of integrated tools for the simulation of the sewer system and the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), both in the analyses and the operational phases. The paper deals with the programme for investigating the impact of real time control (RTC) on the performance of the sewer system and wastewater treatment plant. As the project still is in a very early phase, this paper focuses on the modelling of the transport of pollutants and the evaluation of the effect on the sediment deposition pattern from the implementation of real time control in the sewer system.


2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 283-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Iranpour ◽  
R. Palacios ◽  
H.H.J. Cox ◽  
V. Abkian

Fecal coliform recurrence has been observed at the City of Los Angeles Hyperion Treatment Plant during pilot-scale experiments with a designated thermophilic battery of six anaerobic digesters, while other digesters were still at a mesophilic temperature. Several lab and full-scale experiments indicated the following possible causes of the growth/reactivation of fecal coliforms in post-digestion: a) contamination of thermophilically digested biosolids with mesophilically digested biosolids; b) a large drop in the biosolids temperature between the centrifuges and silos, which could have allowed the reactivation and/or growth of fecal coliforms. These were resolved by the full plant conversion to thermophilic anaerobic digestion and design modifications of the post-digestion train.


Author(s):  
R. Babko ◽  
V. Pliashechnyk ◽  
T. Kuzmina ◽  
Y. Danko ◽  
J. Szulżyk-Cieplak ◽  
...  

Abstract The work is devoted to the task of simplifying the assessment of the effect of effluents from treatment facilities on the river hydrobiocenosis. The studies were carried out on the mountain river Uzh (Uzhgorod, Ukraine). Our approach to assessing the impact of waste treatment facilities on the river receiver is based on the estimate of the similarity of species composition and quantitative characteristics of populations of organisms from the aerotank and from the river. It is shown that the quantitative development of populations of species of ciliates from the aeration tank is a good indicator for assessing the degradation of organic matter coming with wastewater. The use of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the protozoa from the wastewater treatment plant as a criterion for assessing the quality of the environment in the area of wastewater discharge showed their representativeness and effectiveness. The use of a limited number of species makes it possible to conduct an express assessment of the effect of effluents on receiving reservoirs for specialists working with activated sludge in the laboratories of treatment facilities.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami M. Hamdan ◽  
Abdelmajid Nassar ◽  
Uwe Troeger

The Gaza Strip suffers from high pressure imposed on its water resources. There is a deficit of about 50 mm3 every year, which has led to a declination of groundwater level and deterioration of groundwater quality. New water resources are sought to fulfil the water deficit; among them is the artificial recharge of treated wastewater to groundwater. The impact of recharging partially treated wastewater in Gaza was tested through a pilot project implemented east of the existing wastewater treatment plant. The daily application of about 10,000 m3 of effluent to infiltration basins had an effect on the aquifer, which was monitored through the surrounding operating water wells over five years from 2000 until 2005. Although the monitored wells are operated for irrigation by farmers, impacts were clearly noticed. Groundwater levels improved and an increase in some areas of 0.6 m within three years was observed. The nitrate ion concentration also decreased in the groundwater due to nitrification processes. However, chloride ion, which indicates salinity, increased because the effluent has high chloride concentration. Boron levels increased in some areas to 0.5 mg/l, which could affect sensitive crops grown in the area.


1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (12) ◽  
pp. 73-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cintoli ◽  
B. Di Sabatino ◽  
L. Galeotti ◽  
G. Bruno

A treatment plant of pre-screened piggery wastewater is tested at lab-scale using Italian zeolites (of very low cost) to strongly reduce the NH4+ from 1500 mg/l to 300–400 mg/l and anaerobic digestion in UASB and UASB-AF reactors to remove organics. The ion-exchange pre-treatment by zeolite leads to a reduction of toxicity of wastewater towards anaerobic microbial population and improves the UASB and UASB-AF reactors yields in organics reduction and gas production. The laboratory plant in this configuration reaches a COD removal range of 60–80% and a good reduction of effluent nutrients concentration whereas the use of a anaerobic second stage gave modest results in organics removal because of low applied organic load. A treatment cycle composed of a pre-treatment with zeolites, anaerobic digestion in UASB-AF reactor and a final treatment in an aerobic activated sludge plant is giving very good preliminary results.


2004 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 335-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Fountoulakis ◽  
P. Drillia ◽  
K. Stamatelatou ◽  
G. Lyberatos

Pharmaceuticals present in sewage may inhibit the biological processes in a sewage treatment plant. In this work, the toxic-effect of six pharmaceuticals (carbamazepine, sulfamethoxazole, propranolol hydrochloride, diclofenac sodium, ofloxacin and clofibric acid) on the anaerobic digestion process is assessed. Acetoclastic methanogenes are the most sensitive group of microorganisms participating in the anaerobic digestion process. Appropriate toxicity tests for these microorganisms were then based on assessing the impact of pharmaceuticals on the specific methanogenic activity (SMA) of the anaerobic biomass. The toxicity was expressed by the IC80 and IC50 values, i.e. the concentration at which bioactivity was 80% and 50% of the control, respectively. Results showed that the pharmaceuticals tested caused a mild inhibition to the methanogenes in most cases, related directly to the tendency of the compounds to adsorb on the anaerobic biomass.


2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 1195-1201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjorn Rusten ◽  
Ashish K. Sahu

Proof-of-concept has been demonstrated for a process that will utilize nutrients from sludge liquor, natural light, and CO2 from biogas to grow microalgae at wastewater treatment plants. This process will reduce the impact of returning side-streams to the head of the plant. The produced algae will be fed to anaerobic digesters for increased biogas production. Dewatering of anaerobically digested sludge in centrifuges produces reject water with extremely low transmittance of light. A pre-treatment procedure was developed that improved light transmittance for reject water from the FREVAR, Norway, wastewater treatment plant from 0.1% T to 77% T (670 nm, 1 cm path). Chlorella sp. microalgae were found to be suitable for growth in this pre-treated reject water. Typical nitrogen removal was 80–90 g N/kg TSS of produced microalgae. The microalgae were successfully harvested by chemically assisted flocculation followed by straining through a 33 μm sieve cloth, achieving up to 99% recovery. Harvested algae were anaerobically co-digested with wastewater sludge. The specific methane gas production (mL CH4/g VS fed) for the algae varied from less than 65% to 90% of the specific methane gas production for the wastewater sludge, depending on digester temperature, retention time and pre-treatment of the algae biomass.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 126-131
Author(s):  
P. Murodov ◽  
O. Amirov ◽  
P. Khuzhaev

The influence of the discharged treated wastewater on the ecology of the Kafirnigan River is considered. The data on the current state of sewage treatment facilities in the city of Dushanbe are given and an assessment of the environmental efficiency of these treatment facilities is given. Preliminary calculations of costs for the construction of a new sewage treatment plant in Dushanbe have been made. The article is devoted to the current problem of cleaning storm sewers. It should be noted that storm water drainage, like wastewater, has a negative impact on the environment. Before the wastewater is disposed of, it is necessary to treat it in a special way, subjecting it to treatment of varying degrees and depths.


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