Ki Young Park

Investigation of the sludge reduction mechanism in the anaerobic side-stream reactor process using several control biological wastewater treatment processes

To investigate the mechanism of sludge reduction in the anaerobic side-stream reactor (SSR) process, activated sludge with five different sludge reduction schemes were studied side-by-side in the laboratory. These are activated sludge with: 1) aerobic SSR, 2) anaerobic SSR, 3) aerobic digester, 4) anaerobic digester, and 5) no sludge wastage. The system with anaerobic SSR (system #2) was the focus of this study and four other systems served as control processes with different functions and purposes. Both mathematical and experimental approaches were made to determine solids retention time (SRT) and sludge yield for the anaerobic SSR process. The results showed that the anaerobic SSR process produced the lowest solids generation, indicating that sludge organic fractions degraded in this system are larger than other systems that possess only aerobic or anaerobic mode. Among three systems that involved long SRT (system #1, #2, and #5), it was only system #2 that showed stable sludge settling and effluent quality, indicating that efficient sludge reduction in this process occurred along with continuous generation of normal sludge flocs. This observation was further supported by batch anaerobic and aerobic digestion data. Batch digestion on sludges collected after 109 days of operation clearly demonstrated that both anaerobically and aerobically digestible materials were removed in activated sludge with anaerobic SSR. In contrast, sludge reduction in the aerobic SSR process or no wastage system was achieved by removal of mainly aerobically digestible materials. All these results led us to conclude that repeating sludge under both feast/fasting and anaerobic/aerobic conditions (i.e., activated sludge with anaerobic SSR) is necessary to achieve the highest biological solids reduction with normal wastewater treatment performance.

Growth of microalgae in diluted process water of the animal wastewater treatment plant.

The growth of microalgae was investigated using diluted process water from an animal waste treatment plant as a substrate. Batch experiments were carried out to determine the growth characteristics of three microalgae strains: Microcystis aeruginosa, Chlorella vulgaris and Euglena gracilis. The two types of process water with different dilution rates were used for the experiments. The biokinetic parameters of each culture were estimated from the logistic growth curves for comparative analysis. In aerobic effluent, most growth parameters were significantly better than in anaerobic effluent regardless of the dilution rates. This suggests that the concentration of organic matter, such as volatile fatty acids, affects microgal growth. Euglena gracilis, which was the largest in size, had the highest growth rates among the three species in both pure and mixed cultures.

Ultrasound pretreatment of filamentous algal biomass for enhanced biogas production.

The filamentous alga Hydrodictyon reticulatum harvested from a bench-scale wastewater treatment pond was used to evaluate biogas production after ultrasound pretreatment. The effects of ultrasound pretreatment at a range of 10-5000 J/mL were tested with harvested H. reticulatum. Cell disruption by ultrasound was successful and showed a higher degree of disintegration at a higher applied energy. The range of 10-5000 J/mL ultrasound was able to disintegrated H. reticulatum and the soluble COD was increased from 250 mg/L to 1000 mg/L at 2500 J/mL. The disintegrated algal biomass was digested for biogas production in batch experiments. Both cumulative gas generation and volatile solids reduction data were obtained during the digestion. Cell disintegration due to ultrasound pretreatment increased the specific biogas production and degradation rates. Using the ultrasound approach, the specific methane production at a dose of 40 J/mL increased up to 384 mL/g-VS fed that was 2.3 times higher than the untreated sample. For disintegrated samples, the volatile solids reduction was greater with increased energy input, and the degradation increased slightly to 67% at a dose of 50 J/mL. The results also indicate that disintegration of the algal cells is the essential step for efficient anaerobic digestion of algal biomass.

Pretreatment of agricultural biomass for anaerobic digestion: Current state and challenges

The anaerobic digestion (AD) of agricultural biomass is an attractive second generation biofuel with potential environmental and economic benefits. Most agricultural biomass contains lignocellulose which requires pretreatment prior to AD. For optimization, the pretreatment methods need to be specific to the characteristics of the biomass feedstock. In this review, cereal residue, fruit and vegetable wastes, grasses and animal manure were selected as the agricultural biomass candidates, and the fundamentals and current state of various pretreatment methods used for AD of these feedstocks were investigated. Several nonconventional methods (electrical, ionic liquid-based chemicals, ruminant biological pretreatment) offer potential as targeted pretreatments of lignocellulosic biomass, but each comes with its own challenges. Pursuing an energy-intensive route, a combined bioethanol-biogas production could be a promising a second biofuel refinery option, further emphasizing the importance of pretreatment when lignocellulosic feedstock is used.

Changes in bacterial and archaeal communities in anaerobic digesters treating different organic wastes

The goal of this study was to characterize microbial communities in anaerobic batch digesters treating different representative organic sources (sewage sludge, food waste, septage). Among the digesters, the anaerobic digester of food waste had the highest methanogen density, producing a peak value methane yield of 813.2mLCH4/gVS. In all the digesters, acetoclastic Methanosarcinales and hydrogenotrophic Methanomicrobiales were the most dominant methanogen groups, but their proportion among the methanogens varied depending on the organic sources. The bacteria community in the anaerobic digestion (AD) of food waste and septage was distinctly different from that found in the AD of sewage sludge (primary sludge and waste activated sludge). Shifts in both bacterial and archaeal community structures could be related to differences in chemical properties, production, and accumulation of intermediates digested from organic wastes having different characteristics. These findings could prove useful in optimizing the microbial community to enhance AD process treating organic wastes.

Releasing characteristics and fate of heavy metals from phytoremediation crop residues during anaerobic digestion

In this study, lab-scale batch tests were conducted to investigate releasing characteristics of heavy metals according to degradation of heavy metal containing biomass. The fate of heavy metals after released from biomass was also determined through adsorption tests and Visual MINTEQ simulation. According to the anaerobic batch test results as well as volatile solids and carbon balance analyses, maximum of 60% by wt. of biomass was degraded. During the anaerobic biodegradation, among Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn, only Cu and Zn were observed in soluble form (approximately 40% by wt. of input mass). The discrepancy between degradation ratio of biomass and ratio of released heavy metals mass from biomass was observed. It seems that this discordance was caused by the fate (i.e., precipitated with sulfur/hydroxide or adsorbed onto sorbents) of each heavy metal types in solution after being released from biomass. Thus, releasing characteristics and fate of heavy metal should be considered carefully to predict stability of anaerobic digestion process for heavy metal-containing biomass.

Characterized hydrochar of algal biomass for producing solid fuel through hydrothermal carbonization

The aim of this work was to study the characterized hydrochar of algal biomass to produce solid fuel though hydrothermal carbonization. Hydrothermal carbonization conducted at temperatures ranging from 180 to 270 °C with a 60 min reaction improved the upgrading of the fuel properties and the dewatering of wet-basis biomasses such as algae. The carbon content, carbon recovery, energy recovery, and atomic C/O and C/H ratios in all the hydrochars in this study were improved. These characteristic changes in hydrochar from algal biomass are similar to the coalification reactions due to dehydration and decarboxylation with an increase in the hydrothermal reaction temperature. The results of this study indicate that hydrothermal carbonization can be used as an effective means of generating highly energy-efficient renewable fuel resources using algal biomass.

Fate of antibiotic resistance genes in mesophilic and thermophilic anaerobic digestion of chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) sludge

Anaerobic digestion (AD) of chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) sludge and non-CEPT (conventional sedimentation) sludge were comparatively operated under mesophilic and thermophilic conditions. The highest methane yield (692.46±0.46mL CH4/g VSremoved in CEPT sludge) was observed in mesophilic AD of CEPT sludge. Meanwhile, thermophilic conditions were more favorable for the removal of total antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). In this study, no measurable difference in the fates and removal of ARGs and class 1 integrin-integrase gene (intI1) was observed between treated non-CEPT and CEPT sludge. However, redundancy analysis indicated that shifts in bacterial community were primarily accountable for the variations in ARGs and intI1. Network analysis further revealed potential host bacteria for ARGs and intI1.

Use of concentrate water from seawater desalination plant as magnesium sources for struvite formation by using anaerobically digested effluent of swine wastewater

AbstractAlthough struvite crystallization has been proven an effective process to recover nutrients from wastewater, this method has not been used widely because of the cost of the raw chemicals, such as magnesium chloride, required as supplements. In this study, in view of the high cost of supplementing magnesium, reject water from a seawater reverse osmosis process was investigated as a potential source of magnesium. The magnesium was used in the nutrient recovery process, by which struvite crystallization was performed from the anaerobically digested effluent of swine wastewater. The results of all the experiments were positive, indicating that struvite formation was successfully performed from the effluent, using the concentrate water as a magnesium source. Removal efficiencies of up to 94.5% for phosphate and 12.7% for ammonium were achieved under normal operating conditions. Seed materials were successfully used as nucleation sites to enhance the purity of the struvite and the crystal size. The remo...

Carbon dioxide injection method for enhancing hydrogenotrophic denitrification of secondary wastewater effluent in fixed bed reactor

This study presents an optimal injection method for using carbon dioxide as a carbon source for the hydrogenotrophic denitrification of secondary wastewater effluent in a laboratory-scale fixed bed reactor (FBR). The FBR was operated under three conditions: a continuous CO2 supply, periodic CO2 supply, and without a CO2 supply. The continuous operation of the FBR without carbon dioxide injection resulted in an increase in pH to 10 and a noticeable level of nitrite accumulation. The continuous co-injection of carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas decreased the pH to a range of 6 ∼ 8, but the denitrification efficiency decreased to 29%. The co-injection of carbon dioxide decreased the maximum dissolved hydrogen concentration and hydrogen mass transfer rate by 25 and 61%, respectively. Compared to the continuous injection method, a periodic injection of carbon dioxide increased the denitrification efficiency from 28.6 to 85% as the hydrogen flow rate and hydraulic retention time (HRT) increased. With the periodic injection of carbon dioxide, the nitrite accumulation appeared to be insignificant as the hydrogen flow rate increased.