scholarly journals Effect of different hydrolytic enzymes pretreatment for improving the hydrolysis and biodegradability of waste activated sludge

2018 ◽  
Vol 2017 (2) ◽  
pp. 592-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiahao Chen ◽  
Shihu Liu ◽  
Yingmu Wang ◽  
Wei Huang ◽  
Jian Zhou

Abstract In this study, the effects of lysozyme, protease and α-amylase pretreatments for improving the hydrolysis and biodegradability of waste activated sludge (WAS) were investigated. The results showed that lysozyme was more effective in increasing the soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) concentration in the liquid phase of sludge and improving the release of protein and carbohydrate from sludge flocculation to enhance sludge hydrolysis. After 8 h hydrolysis, the net SCOD increase in a reactor with lysozyme was 2.23 times and 2.15 times that of the reactors with protease and α-amylase, respectively. Meanwhile, lysozyme and protease could improve the lysis of microorganism cells and the dissolution of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) to a certain extent, and lysozyme was more effective. Furthermore, the compositional characteristics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and EPS were analyzed by EEM fluorescence spectroscopy and fluorescence regional integration (FRI) analysis. Tryptophan-like protein was the main component of sludge, which accounted for 31% and 38% of DOM and EPS, respectively. Lysozyme could decrease the percentage of non-biodegradable materials in sludge, such as humic acid-like substances and fulvic acid-like substances, so it could improve the biodegradability of sludge. This study can provide valuable information for future studies about hydrolytic enzyme pretreatments for WAS disposal.

2018 ◽  
Vol 78 (8) ◽  
pp. 1772-1781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyungjun (Brian) Jo ◽  
Wayne Parker ◽  
Peiman Kianmehr

Abstract A range of thermal pretreatment conditions were used to evaluate the impact of high pressure thermal hydrolysis on the biodegradability of waste activated sludge (WAS) under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. It was found that pretreatment did not increase the overall extent to which WAS could be aerobically biodegraded. Thermal pretreatment transformed the biodegradable fraction of WAS (XH) to readily biodegradable chemical oxygen demand (COD) (SB) (16.5–34.6%) and slowly biodegradable COD (XB) (45.8–63.6%). The impact of pretreatment temperature and duration on WAS COD fractionation did not follow a consistent pattern as changes in COD solubilization did not correspond to the observed generation of SB through pretreatment. The pretreated WAS (PWAS) COD fractionations determined from aerobic respirometry were employed in anaerobic modeling and it was concluded that the aerobic and anaerobic biodegradability of PWAS differed. It was found that thermal pretreatment resulted in as much as 50% of the endogenous decay products becoming biodegradable in anaerobic digestion. Overall, it was concluded that the COD fractionation that was developed based upon the aerobic respirometry was valid. However, it was necessary to implement a first-order decay process that reflected changes in the anaerobic biodegradability of the endogenous products through pretreatment.


2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (12) ◽  
pp. 2827-2831 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Charles ◽  
B. Ng ◽  
R. Cord-Ruwisch ◽  
L. Cheng ◽  
G. Ho ◽  
...  

Anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS) is relatively poor due to hydrolysis limitations. Acid and alkaline pretreatments are effective in enhancing hydrolysis leading to higher methane yields. However, chemical costs often prohibit full-scale application. In this study, 12 V two-chamber electrolysis using an anion exchange membrane alters sludge pH without chemical dosing. pH dropped from 6.9 to 2.5 in the anode chamber and increased to 10.1 in the cathode chamber within 15 h. The volatile suspended solids solubilisation of WAS was 31.1% in the anode chamber and 34.0% in the cathode chamber. As a result, dissolved chemical oxygen demand increased from 164 to 1,787 mg/L and 1,256 mg/L in the anode and cathode chambers, respectively. Remixing of sludge from the two chambers brought the pH back to 6.5, hence no chemical neutralisation was required prior to anaerobic digestion. Methane yield during anaerobic digestion at 20 d retention time was 31% higher than that of untreated sludge. An energy balance assessment indicated that the non-optimised process could approximately recover the energy (electricity) expended in the electrolysis process. With suitable optimisation of treatment time and voltages, significant energy savings would be expected in addition to the benefit of decreased sludge volume.


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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 00027
Author(s):  
Sylwia Myszograj ◽  
Magdalena Wojciech

Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) solubilisation was used to evaluate the impact of thermal pretreatment on the transfer of sewage sludge from particulate to soluble phase. It was gathering the experimental data needed for building of empirical mathematical model describing the relation between applied temperature and time and rate of COD solubilisation and degradation. In view of repeated measurements, in order to describe the relationship between changes in the fraction of dissolved COD and the time and temperature, mixed models have been adopted where by fixed factor measurement conditions have been adopted: time and temperature, while the random factor changes the characteristics of waste activated sludge. Linear and logistic nonlinear mixed models were analyzed. The tests demonstrated that all variables are statistically significant in assessing their impact on the efficiency of liquefaction of sludge. On the basis of the estimated model, the temperature rise of 10°C increases degree of disintegration 1.7% above the average treatment time for 0.5h, by 2.6% for 1 hour, and by 3.9% for 2h. COD values decrease between 3 to 23% at temperatures in the range of 55 to 115°C. At higher temperatures COD was reduced in the range of 32 to 44%. Disintegration time did not have the significant impact on the degradation effect.


Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1580
Author(s):  
Farokh laqa Kakar ◽  
Ahmed El Sayed ◽  
Neha Purohit ◽  
Elsayed Elbeshbishy

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the hydrothermal pretreatment’s retention time influence on the volatile fatty acids and biomethane production from thickened waste activated sludge under mesophilic conditions. Six different retention times of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 min were investigated while the hydrothermal pretreatment temperature was kept at 170 °C. The results showed that the chemical oxygen demand (COD) solubilization increased by increasing the hydrothermal pretreatment retention time up to 30 min and stabilized afterwards. The highest COD solubilization of 48% was observed for the sample pretreated at 170 °C for 30 min. Similarly, the sample pretreated at 170 °C for 30 min demonstrated the highest volatile fatty acids yield of 14.5 g COD/Lsubstrate added and a methane yield of 225 mL CH4/g TCODadded compared to 4.3 g COD/Lsubstrate added and 163 mL CH4/g TCODadded for the raw sample, respectively. The outcome of this study revealed that the optimum conditions for solubilization are not necessarily associated with the best fermentation and/or digestion performance.


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.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhee Shin ◽  
Si-Kyung Cho ◽  
Joonyeob Lee ◽  
Kwanghyun Hwang ◽  
Jae Chung ◽  
...  

Waste activated sludge (WAS) is a byproduct of municipal wastewater treatment. WAS contains a large proportion of inactive microbes, so when it is used as a substrate for anaerobic digestion (AD), their presence can interfere with monitoring of active microbial populations. To investigate how influent cells affect the active and inactive microbial communities during digestion of WAS, we operated model mesophilic bioreactors with conventional conditions. Under six different hydraulic retention times (HRTs; 25, 23, 20, 17, 14, and 11.5 d), the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal and CH4 production of the AD were within a typical range for mesophilic sludge digesters. In the main bacteria were proteobacteria, bacteroidetes, and firmicutes in both the WAS and the bioreactors, while in main archaeal methanogen group was Methanosarcinales in the WAS and methanomicrobiales in the bioreactors. Of the 106 genera identified, the estimated net growth rates were negative in 72 and positive in 34. The genera with negative growth included many aerobic taxa. The genera with positive growth rates included methanogens and syntrophs. In some taxa, the net growth rate could be positive or negative, depending on HRT, so their abundance was also affected by HRT. This study gives insights into the microbial dynamics of a conventional sludge anaerobic digester by distinguishing potentially active (growing) and inactive (non-growing, dormant) microbes and by correlating population dynamics with process parameters.


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