An examination of the treatment of iron-dosed waste activated sludge by anaerobic digestion.

Anaerobic digestion is an important sludge treatment process enabling stabilisation of the organic fraction of sewage sludge prior to land application. Any practice which might retard the anaerobic digestion process will jeopardize the stability of the resulting digested sludge. This paper reports on an investigation into the relative digestibility of iron-dosed waste activated sludge (WAS) from a sewage treatment works (STW) with chemical phosphorus removal (CPR), in comparison to WAS from a works without phosphorus removal. Two laboratory scale anaerobic digesters (51) were fed initially with non iron-dosed WAS (Works M) at a solids retention time of 19 days. After 2 months the iron-dosed CPR sludge (Works R) was introduced into the second digester, resulting in a 32% decrease in biogas production and an increase in the methane content of the biogas from an average of 74% to 81%. Pre-treatment of the CPR sludge with sodium sulphide and shear, both alone and in combination, caused the gas production to deteriorate further. Pre-acidification and pre-treatment with EDTA did result in an enhanced gas production but it was still not comparable with that of the digester being fed with non-iron-dosed sludge. The daily gas production was found to be linearly related to the amount of bound iron in the sludge.

Measuring metal and phosphorus speciation in P-rich anaerobic digesters.

High concentrations of soluble orthophosphate, magnesium and potassium are released during anaerobic digestion of biological phosphorus removal (BPR) sludge. This research was undertaken to investigate the effects of phosphorus enrichment on digester performance, metal and phosphorus speciation. High concentrations of soluble PO4-P (> 250 mg/l) were found to have a retarding effect on anaerobic digestion, reducing the rate of volatile solids digestion and methane production in comparison to control digesters. This was found to be reversible after a period of time, which was related to the amount of PO4-P added to the digesters, higher concentrations of PO4-P requiring more time for digester recovery. Addition of magnesium and potassium to the digesters, together with PO4-P, reduced the inhibitory effect of phosphorus enrichment but these digesters still showed lower rates of volatile solids digestion and methane production in comparison to the control digesters. Phosphorus enrichment resulted in extensive precipitation of calcium, magnesium and manganese, markedly reducing the soluble and easily available fractions of these metals. Other trace metals such as copper, zinc, chromium, nickel and cobalt actually showed increased levels of solubility as a result of phosphorus enrichment. This was thought to be caused by high levels of soluble organic carbon in the phosphorus-rich anaerobic digesters, which acted as organic ligands for metal complexation.