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Deammonification for digester supernatant pretreated with thermal hydrolysis: overcoming inhibition through process optimization

  • Environmental biotechnology
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Abstract

The thermal hydrolysis process (THP) has been proven to be an excellent pretreatment step for an anaerobic digester (AD), increasing biogas yield and decreasing sludge disposal. The goal of this work was to optimize deammonification for efficient nitrogen removal despite the inhibition effects caused by the organics present in the THP-AD sludge filtrate (digestate). Two sequencing batch reactors were studied treating conventional digestate and THP-AD digestate, respectively. Improved process control based on higher dissolved oxygen set-point (1 mg O2/L) and longer aeration times could achieve successful treatment of THP-AD digestate. This increased set-point could overcome the inhibition effect on aerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AerAOB), potentially caused by particulate and colloidal organics. Moreover, based on the mass balance, anoxic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB) contribution to the total nitrogen removal decreased from 97 ± 1 % for conventional to 72 ± 5 % for THP-AD digestate treatment, but remained stable by selective AnAOB retention using a vibrating screen. Overall, similar total nitrogen removal rates of 520 ± 28 mg N/L/day at a loading rate of 600 mg N/L/day were achieved in the THP-AD reactor compared to the conventional digestate treatment operating at low dissolved oxygen (DO) (0.38 ± 0.10 mg O2/L).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), Washington, DC. S.E.V. was supported as a postdoctoral fellow from The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO - Vlaanderen). The authors gratefully thank Norman Dockett for technical support, and Matthew Michaelis for carrying digestate from Alexandria WWTP. The authors also thank everyone in the DC Water research lab for all assistance offered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DC Water, 5000 Overlook Ave. SW, Washington, DC, 20032, USA

    Qi Zhang, Haydée De Clippeleir, Chunyang Su, Ahmed Al-Omari & Sudhir Murthy

  2. ARAconsult, Unterbergerstr.1, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Bernhard Wett

  3. Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology (LabMET), Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000, Gent, Belgium

    Qi Zhang & Siegfried E. Vlaeminck

  4. Research Group of Sustainable Energy, Air and Water Technology, Department of Bioscience Engineering, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Siegfried E. Vlaeminck

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  1. Qi Zhang
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  2. Haydée De Clippeleir
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  4. Ahmed Al-Omari
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Correspondence to Siegfried E. Vlaeminck.

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This work was supported by District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), Washington, DC, USA. S.E.V. was supported as a postdoctoral fellow from The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO - Vlaanderen).

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Zhang, Q., De Clippeleir, H., Su, C. et al. Deammonification for digester supernatant pretreated with thermal hydrolysis: overcoming inhibition through process optimization. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 100, 5595–5606 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-016-7368-0

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