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Enhancing post anaerobic digestion of full-scale anaerobically digested sludge using free nitrous acid treatment

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Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

In some wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), the ever increasing production of sludge with the expanding population overloaded the anaerobic digestion which compromises the sludge reduction efficiency. Post anaerobic digestion of anaerobically digested sludge (ADS) has been applied to enhance sludge reduction, however, to a very limited extent. This study verified the effectiveness of free nitrous acid (FNA i.e. HNO2) pre-treatment on enhancing full-scale ADS degradation in post anaerobic digestion. The ADS collected from a full-scale WWTP was subject to FNA treatment at concentrations of 0.77, 1.54, 2.31, 3.08, and 3.85 mg N/L for 24 h followed by biochemical methane potential tests. The FNA treatment at all concentrations resulted in an increase (from 1.5–3.1 % compared to the control) in sludge reduction with the highest improvement achieved at 0.77 mg HNO2-N/L. The FNA treatment at this concentration also resulted in the highest increase in methane production (40 %) compared to the control. The economic analysis indicates that FNA treatment is economically attractive for enhancing post anaerobic digestion of full-scale ADS.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP120102832, Linkage Project LP130100361 with Gold Coast City Council and Sydney Water as industry partners. The authors thank Prof Damien Batstone, Dr Heri Bustemante from Sydney Water, Ms Kelly Hopewell from Gold Coast City Council and Ruipu Yang from Unitywater for the valuable discussion. Ms. Tingting Zhang acknowledges China Scholarship Council scholarship. Dr. Qilin Wang acknowledges The University of Queensland Early Career Research Grant (ECR040).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Tingting Zhang, Qilin Wang, Liu Ye & Zhiguo Yuan

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Liu Ye

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  1. Tingting Zhang
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  2. Qilin Wang
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  3. Liu Ye
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  4. Zhiguo Yuan
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Correspondence to Qilin Wang or Zhiguo Yuan.

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Zhang, T., Wang, Q., Ye, L. et al. Enhancing post anaerobic digestion of full-scale anaerobically digested sludge using free nitrous acid treatment. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 43, 713–717 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-016-1742-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-016-1742-x

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