Recovery of ammonia in anaerobic digestate using vacuum thermal stripping - acid absorption process: scale-up considerations

A vacuum thermal stripping process coupled with acid absorption has been developed at laboratory scale to recover ammonia in anaerobic digestate. To make this ammonia recovery process scalable, this study investigated the effects of feed depth on vacuum thermal stripping in a pilot system, developed sodium hydroxide dosages required to raise feed pH for stripping, and simulated the dynamics of ammonia reduction in batch stripping tests. As feed depth was increased from 8.5 to 34.0 cm, the ammonia mass transfer coefficient and ammonia stripping efficiency decreased while the mass of stripped ammonia increased. Digested municipal sludge had a greater ammonia mass transfer coefficient than digested dairy manure at each feed depth, which could be attributed to the difference in suspended and dissolved solids concentrations. The optimum feed depth was 18 cm of the digested sludge and 14 cm of the digested manure. Sodium hydroxide dosage for the digested manure was higher than that for the digested sludge and co-digested foodwaste. The dosages were correlated to concentrations of total dissolved solids and ammonia. Total ammonia concentration decreased exponentially in batch stripping of the digested sludge at 25.5 cm deep, with a first-order stripping rate coefficient of 0.087-0.144 h^-1.

Developing a vacuum thermal stripping - acid absorption process for ammonia recovery from anaerobic digester effluent

To prevent acetoclastic methanogens from ammonia inhibition in anaerobic digestion of protein-rich substrates, ammonia needs to be removed or recovered from digestate. This paper presents an innovative ammonia recovery process that couples vacuum thermal stripping with acid absorption. Ammonia is stripped out of digestate boiling at a temperature below the normal boiling point due to vacuum. Stripped ammonia is absorbed to a sulfuric acid solution, forming ammonium sulfate crystals as a marketable product. Three common types of digestate were found to have boiling point temperature-vacuum curves similar to water. Seven combinations of boiling temperature and vacuum (50 °C 16.6 kPa, 58 °C 20.0 kPa, 65 °C 25.1 kPa, 70 °C 33.6 kPa, 80 °C 54.0 kPa, 90 °C 74.2 kPa, and 100 °C 101.3 kPa) were tested for batch stripping of ammonia in dairy manure digestate. 93.3-99.9% of ammonia was stripped in 3 h. The Lewis-Whitman model fitted ammonia stripping process well. Ammonia mass transfer coefficient was significantly higher at boiling temperature 65-100 °C and vacuum pressure 25.1-101.3 kPa than 50-58 °C and 16.6-20.0 kPa. The low ammonia saturation concentrations (0-24 mg N/L) suggested a large driving force to strip ammonia. The optimum boiling point temperature - vacuum pressure for ammonia recovery in a recirculation line of a mesophilic digester was 65 °C and 25.1 kPa, at which the ammonia mass transfer coefficient was as high as 37.3 mm/h. Installation of a demister and liquid trap could avoid negative effects of higher stripping temperature and stronger vacuum on formation of ammonium sulfate crystals. Pilot tests demonstrated that high-purity ammonium sulfate crystals could be produced by controlling sulfuric acid content and maintaining acid solution saturated with ammonium sulfate. Although volatile organic compounds such as cyclohexene were found in the final acid solutions, no volatile organic compounds were found in the recovered crystals.