Rob Van den Broeck

Assessment of activated sludge stability in lab-scale experiments.

The majority of activated sludge research is conducted in a laboratory environment with, most often, the start-up sludge being taken from a large-scale wastewater treatment plant. Inoculating this sludge in a lab-scale set-up induces a transient period, which, evidently, has a direct impact on the experimental results during this period of acclimatization. In the currently published literature, the acclimatization period is either neglected or fixed to two or three times the sludge age, without any guarantee that stable conditions are indeed reached. To develop a strategy that assesses the stability of activated sludge, three experiments were performed during which the activated sludge was extensively monitored through a series of physical, microscopic and biochemical analyses. It is demonstrated that it is possible to objectively quantify activated sludge stability through the monitoring of the total averaged filament length per image, the sludge volume index and the maximum specific oxygen uptake rate. Hereto, a moving window approach is adopted: within a 7 days interval the mean slope and the gap between the maximum and minimum value has to be smaller than a pre-specified threshold value. Once stability is reached, the true impact of test conditions can be studied without interference of adaptation phenomena.

Effect of Microstructure on Population Growth Parameters of Escherichia coli in Gelatin-Dextran Systems

ABSTRACT Current literature acknowledges the effect of food structure on bacterial dynamics. Most studies introduce this “structure” factor using a single gelling agent, resulting in a homogeneous environment, whereas in practice most food products are heterogeneous. Therefore, this study focuses on heterogeneous protein-polysaccharide mixtures, based on gelatin and dextran. These mixtures show phase separation, leading to a range of heterogeneous microstructures by adjusting relative concentrations of both gelling agents. Based on confocal microscope observations, the growth of Escherichia coli in gelatin-dextran systems was observed to occur in the dextran phase. To find a relation between microscopic and population behavior, growth experiments were performed in binary and singular gelatin-dextran systems and culture broth at 23.5°C, with or without adding 2.9% (wt/vol) NaCl. The Baranyi and Roberts growth model was fitted to the experimental data and parameter estimates were statistically compared. For salted binary mixtures, a decrease in the population maximum cell density was observed with increasing gelatin concentration. In this series, for one type of microstructure, i.e., a gelatin matrix phase with a disperse dextran phase, the maximum cell density decreased with decreasing percentage of dextran phase. However, this relation no longer held when other types of microstructure were observed. Compared to singular systems, adding a second gelling agent in the presence of NaCl had an effect on population lag phases and maximum cell densities. For unsalted media, the growth parameters of singular and binary mixtures were comparable. Introducing this information into mathematical models leads to more reliable growth predictions and enhanced food safety.

Comparing glow discharge plasma and ultrasound treatment for improving aerobic respiration of activated sludge

In this paper, a new and innovative technique, glow discharge plasma, is introduced for the treatment of activated sludge, whereby its effect on sludge solubilization, settleability, floc structure and biomass activity for carbon removal and nitrification is investigated. The obtained results are compared to the use of ultrasound for activated sludge treatment, a technique known for its potential to enhancing biomass activity. Results indicate that ultrasound is up to 9 times more efficient in solubilizing activated sludge and disrupting the sludge floc. However, ultrasound has a detrimental effect on sludge settling, even the lowest treatment intensity of 180 kJ/kgMLSS induced a 12% increase in sludge volume index (SVI). Glow discharge plasma on the other hand, improved settleability up to 51%. Glow discharge plasma and ultrasound both positively affect the carbon removal rate. On the long term, extreme conditions even gave rise to a maximum improvement in respiration by 58.6% and 176.5% for a glow discharge plasma and ultrasound treatment. Nitrification, however, was never positively influenced by either of the treatments. Starting from 8297 kJ/kgMLSS for glow discharge plasma and 9000 kJ/kgMLSS for ultrasound, a negative effect on the nitrification rate was found.