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Upgrading the hydrolytic potential of immobilized bacterial pretreatment to boost biogas production

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Abstract

In this study, surfactant dioctyl sodium sulphosuccinate (DOSS)-mediated immobilized bacterial pretreatment of waste activated sludge (WAS) was experimentally proved to be an efficient and economically feasible process for enhancing the biodegradability of WAS. The maximal floc disruption with negligible cell cleavage was achieved at surfactant dosage of 0.009 g/g SS. Results of the outcome of bacterial pretreatment of sludge biomass revealed that chemical oxygen demand (COD) solubilization for deflocculated (EPS removed—bacterially pretreated) sludge was 20 %, which was higher than that of flocculated (14 %) or control (5 %). The pretreatment was swift in deflocculated sludge with a rate constant of about 0.064 h−1. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) assay resulted in significant methane yield at 0.24 gCOD/gCOD for deflocculated sludge. Economic assessment of the proposed method showed a net profit of about 57.39 USD/ton of sludge.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to DST, India for providing economic assistance to this work (SR/FTP/ETA-0021/2010) with Young Scientist scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Regional Centre of Anna University, Tirunelveli, 627007, India

    U. Ushani, S. Kavitha & J. Rajesh Banu

  2. St. Xavier College, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli, India

    M. Johnson

  3. Department of Civil and Environment Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea

    Ick Tae Yeom

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  1. U. Ushani
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  2. S. Kavitha
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  3. M. Johnson
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  4. Ick Tae Yeom
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  5. J. Rajesh Banu
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Correspondence to J. Rajesh Banu.

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Ushani, U., Kavitha, S., Johnson, M. et al. Upgrading the hydrolytic potential of immobilized bacterial pretreatment to boost biogas production. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 813–826 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7819-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-7819-2

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