Effect of Hydrothermal Pretreatment on Volatile Fatty Acids Production from Source-Separated Organics

Comprehensive Review of Hydrothermal Pretreatment Parameters Affecting Fermentation and Anaerobic Digestion of Municipal Sludge

Municipal solid waste treatment and disposal have become one of the major concerns in waste management due to the excessive production of waste and higher levels of pollution. To address these challenges and protect the environment in sustainable ways, the hydrothermal pretreatment (HTP) technique coupled with anaerobic digestion (AD) becomes a preferred alternative technology that can be used for municipal solid waste stabilization and the production of renewable energy. However, the impact of HTP parameters such as temperature, retention time, pH, and solid content on the fermentation of TWAS is yet to be well studied and analyzed. Hence this study was conducted to review the effect of hydrothermal pretreatment of thickened waste-activated sludge (TWAS) on fermentation and anaerobic digestion processes. Many studies reported that fermentation of TWAS at pretreatment temperature ranges from 160 °C to 180 °C resulted in a 50% increase in volatile fatty acid (VFA) yields compared to no pretreatment. However, for the AD process, HTP in the range of 175 °C to 200 °C with a 30–60 min retention time was considered the optimal condition for higher biogas production, with 30% increase in biodegradability and greater than 55% increase in biogas production. Even though there is a direct relationship between increased HTP temperature and the hydrolysis of TWAS, a pretreatment temperature range beyond 200 °C alters the biogas production. The solid content (SC) of sludge plays a crucial role in HTP, where in practice up to 16% SC has been utilized for HTP. Further, a combined alkaline-HTP enhances the process performance.

Integrating Torrefaction of Pulp Industry Sludge with Anaerobic Digestion to Produce Biomethane and Volatile Fatty Acids: An Example of Industrial Symbiosis for Circular Bioeconomy

Industrial symbiosis, which allows the sharing of resources between different industries, could help to improve the overall feasibility of bio-based chemicals production. In that regard, this study focused on integrating the torrefaction of pulp industry sludge with anaerobic digestion. More specifically, anaerobic digestion (AD) of pulp sludge-derived torrefaction condensate (TC) was studied to evaluate the biomethane and volatile fatty acid (VFA) potential. The torrefaction condensate produced at 275 and 300 °C was used in AD. The volatile solid content (VS) was 6.69 and 9.01% for the condensate produced at 275 and 300 °C, respectively. The organic fraction of TC mainly contained acetic acid, 2-furanmethanol, and syringol. The methane yield was in the range of 481–772 mL/g VS for the mesophilic and 401–746 mL/g VS for the thermophilic process, respectively. The VFA yield was in the range of 1.1 to 3.4 g/g VS for mesophilic and from 1.5 to 4.7 g/g VS in thermophilic conditions, when methanogenesis was inhibited. Finally, pulp sludge TC is a feasible feedstock to produce platform chemicals like VFA. However, at higher substrate loading, signs of process inhibition were observed because of the relatively increasing concentration of microbial inhibitors

Optimization of thermal hydrolysis process for enhancing anaerobic digestion in a wastewater treatment plant with existing primary sludge fermentation

Many wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) adopted primary sludge fermentation to produce sludge liquor for the biological denitrification process. The fermented primary sludge (FPS) is usually co-digested with thickened waste activated sludge (TWAS) in the anaerobic digestion (AD) process. To date, there has been limited information on how the sludge thermal hydrolysis process (THP) could be retrofitted for enhancing AD in WWTPs with the existing primary sludge fermentation process. This study assessed two THP retrofitting schemes, (FPS + TWAS and TWAS alone) combining different exposure times (15, 30, and 60 min) and temperatures (140, 160, and 180 °C). The results suggested that temperature had more impact on sludge solubilization than exposure times. Notably, 180 °C was the most effective for sludge solubilization under both schemes. However, a higher degree of solubilization did not necessarily lead to higher methane yields. The THP of FPS + TWAS attained considerably higher methane yield than the pretreatment of TWAS alone.

Processes for Bioenergy and Resources Recovery from Biowaste

The increasing quantity of biowaste generation and the requirements governing their ultimate disposal are of serious economic and environmental concern [...]

Inoculum Source Determines Acetate and Lactate Production during Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge and Food Waste

Acetate production from food waste or sewage sludge was evaluated in four semi-continuous anaerobic digestion processes. To examine the importance of inoculum and substrate for acid production, two different inoculum sources (a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and a co-digestion plant treating food and industry waste) and two common substrates (sewage sludge and food waste) were used in process operations. The processes were evaluated with regard to the efficiency of hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis and the microbial community structure was determined. Feeding sewage sludge led to mixed acid fermentation and low total acid yield, whereas feeding food waste resulted in the production of high acetate and lactate yields. Inoculum from WWTP with sewage sludge substrate resulted in maintained methane production, despite a low hydraulic retention time. For food waste, the process using inoculum from WWTP produced high levels of lactate (30 g/L) and acetate (10 g/L), while the process initiated with inoculum from the co-digestion plant had higher acetate (25 g/L) and lower lactate (15 g/L) levels. The microbial communities developed during acid production consisted of the major genera Lactobacillus (92–100%) with food waste substrate, and Roseburia (44–45%) and Fastidiosipila (16–36%) with sewage sludge substrate. Use of the outgoing material (hydrolysates) in a biogas production system resulted in a non-significant increase in bio-methane production (+5–20%) compared with direct biogas production from food waste and sewage sludge.