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Effects of temperature and organic loading rate on the performance and microbial community of anaerobic co-digestion of waste activated sludge and food waste

Anaerobic co-digestion of waste activated sludge and food waste was investigated semi-continuously using continuously stirred tank reactors. Results showed that the performance of co-digestion system was distinctly influenced by temperature and organic loading rate (OLR) in terms of gas production rate (GPR), methane yield, volatile solids (VS) removal efficiency and the system stability. The highest GPR at 55 °C was 1.6 and 1.3 times higher than that at 35 and 45 °C with the OLR of 1 g VSL(-1)d(-1), and the corresponding average CH₄ yields were 0.40, 0.26 and 0.30 L CH₄ g(-1)VSadded, respectively. The thermophilic system exhibited the best load bearing capacity at extremely high OLR of 7 g VSL(-1)d(-1), while the mesophilic system showed the best process stability at low OLRs (< 5 g VSL(-1)d(-1)). Temperature had a more remarkable effect on the richness and diversity of microbial populations than the OLR.

The adsorption behavior and mechanism investigation of Pb(II) removal by flocculation using microbial flocculant GA1

In this work, microbial flocculant GA1 (MBFGA1) was used to remove Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution. A series of experimental parameters including initial pH, MBFGA1 dose, temperature and initial calcium ions concentration on Pb(II) uptake was evaluated. Meanwhile, the flocculation mechanism of MBFGA1 was investigated. The removal efficiency of Pb(II) reached up to 99.85% when MBFGA1 was added in two stages, separately. The results indicated that Pb(II) adsorption could be described by the Langmuir adsorption model, and being the monolayer capacity negatively affected with an increase in temperature. The adsorption process could be described by pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Fourier transform-infrared spectra and environmental scanning electron microscope analysis indicated that MBFGA1 had a large number of functional groups, which had strong capacity for removing Pb(II). The main mechanisms of Pb(II) removal by MBFGA1 could be charge neutralization and adsorption bridging.

Effect of trace amounts of polyacrylamide (PAM) on long-term performance of activated sludge.

This study aims at evaluating the impacts of PAM addition on activated sludge performance. Four lab-scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs), each with a working volume of 3L, were investigated with different PAM concentrations. Experiments were conducted with varying organic loading rate and the sludge volume index (SVI), particle size, zeta potential, specific oxygen uptake rate (SOUR), mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS), COD and ammonium removal efficiency were monitored over a 105-day period. The results showed that all of the PAM addition not only improved the removal efficiencies of COD and ammonium, but also exhibited some advantages on sludge performance. It was found that the sludge performance of settling property, flocculation and microbial activity increased with increasing concentration of PAM. However, high level of PAM (1mg/L) led to the formation of large amounts of loose-structure flocs, which eliminated dissolved oxygen transfer and caused the sludge disintegration, resulting in bad settleability and lower microbial activity. In this way, when the dosage of PAM was 0.1mg/L, the sludge had the best settling property and activity.

Combination of cathodic reduction with adsorption for accelerated removal of Cr(VI) through reticulated vitreous carbon electrodes modified with sulfuric acid-glycine co-doped polyaniline.

Improving the reduction kinetics is crucial in the electroreduction process of Cr(VI). In this study, we developed a novel adsorption-electroreduction system for accelerated removal of Cr(VI) by employing reticulated vitreous carbon electrode modified with sulfuric acid-glycine co-doped polyaniline (RVC/PANI-SA-GLY). Firstly, response surface methodology confirmed the optimum polymerization condition of co-doped polyaniline for modifying electrodes (Aniline, sulfuric acid and glycine, respectively, of 0.2 mol/L, 0.85 mol/L, 0.93 mol/L) when untraditional dopant glycine was added. Subsequently, RVC/PANI-SA-GLY showed higher Cr(VI) removal percentages in electroreduction experiments over RVC electrode modified with sulfuric acid doped polyaniline (RVC/PANI-SA) and bare RVC electrode. In contrast to RVC/PANI-SA, the improvement by RVC/PANI-SA-GLY was more significant and especially obvious at more negative potential, lower initial Cr(VI) concentration, relatively less acidic solution and higher current densities, best achieving 7.84% higher removal efficiency with entire Cr(VI) eliminated after 900 s. Current efficiencies were likewise enhanced by RVC/PANI-SA-GLY under quite negative potentials. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) analysis revealed a possible adsorption-reduction mechanism of RVC/PANI-SA-GLY, which greatly contributed to the faster reduction kinetics and was probably relative to the absorption between protonated amine groups of glycine and HCrO4(-). Eventually, the stability of RVC/PANI-SA-GLY was proven relatively satisfactory.

Application of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide bentonite-titanium dioxide photocatalysis technology for pretreatment of aging leachate

Organobentonite-photocatalysis technology was applied to pretreat aging leachate containing refractory pollutants. The organobentonite was synthesized by organic modifier cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTMAB) and natural bentonite. In characterization experiments, we could confirm that organic functional groups of cetyltrimethylammonium (CTMA(+)) cations were successfully loaded on the surface of bentonite. The combination of CTMAB2.5 adsorption and TiO2 photocatalysis was superior to either running separately. Furthermore, removal efficiency of simultaneously utilizing CTMAB2.5 and TiO2 was better than them in succession. The combination technology was feasible and was optimized by response surface methodology (RSM) with COD and NH3-N removal rate as the target responses. The optimal operation conditions calculated from the regression equations were CTMAB2.5 dosage of 7.5 g/L, pH at 3.5, TiO2 dosage of 1.63 g/L, and reaction time for 60.02 min, which maintained the removal of COD and NH3-N at 82% and 37%, respectively.

Assessing the effect of flow fields on flocculation of kaolin suspension using microbial flocculant GA1

In this work, the effect of flow fields on flocculation efficiency in a kaolin suspension using microbial flocculant GA1 (MBFGA1) was studied. The flow fields were controlled via mechanical mixing of a Rushton turbine in a fully baffled flocculation reactor and simulated by a three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model. Good agreement between experimental and simulated results confirmed the validity and applicability of the CFD model. By integrating flocculation tests with CFD simulations, it was shown that the impeller with different speeds generated different flow fields, and hence offered different efficiencies for flocculation. Flow fields of rapid mixing at 400 rpm then slow mixing at 80 rpm, which formed the largest flocs (538 ± 18 μm), achieved the optimum flocculation efficiency, i.e. the lowest residual turbidity (3.03 ± 0.10 NTU) and the maximum flocculation rate (98.2 ± 0.8%). The two-loop flow pattern associated with the distribution of velocity magnitude, local shear rate and turbulent kinetic energy provided an improved understanding of flow behaviors within the reactor. Additionally, charge neutralization and adsorption bridging were proposed as the main flocculation mechanisms of MBFGA1.

The thin-layer drying characteristics of sewage sludge by the appropriate foaming pretreatment

As dewatered sludge is highly viscous and sticky, the combination of foaming pretreatment and drying process seems to be an alternative method to improve the drying performance of dewatered sludge. In this study, CaO addition followed by mechanical whipping was employed for foaming the dewatered sludge. It was found that the foams were stable and the diameters of bubbles mainly ranged from 0.1 to 0.3 mm. The drying experiments were carried out in a drying oven in the convective mode. The results indicated that foamed sludge at 0.70 g/cm(3) had the best drying performance at each level of temperature, which could save 35-45% drying time to reach 20% moisture content compared with the non-foamed sludge. The drying rate of foamed sludge at 0.70 g/cm(3) was improved with the increasing of drying temperature. The impact of sample thickness on drying rate was not obvious when the sample thickness increased from 2 to 8 mm. Different mathematical models were used for the simulation of foamed sludge drying curves. The Wang and Singh model represented the drying characteristics better than other models with coefficient of determination values over 0.99.