High-Rate Anaerobic Digestion of Waste Activated Sludge by Integration of Electro-Fenton Process.

Anaerobic digestion (AD), being the most effective treatment method of waste activated sludge (WAS), allows for safe disposal. The present study deals with the electro-Fenton (EF) pretreatment for enhancing the WAS biogas potential with low-cost iron electrodes. The effect of pretreatment on the physicochemical characteristics of sludge was assessed. Following EF pretreatment, the pH, conductivity, soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), and volatile fatty acids (VFA) increased to 7.5, 13.72 mS/cm, 4.1 g/L, and 925 mg/L, respectively. Capillary suction time (CST) analysis highlighted the dewaterability effect of EF on WAS, as demonstrated by the decrease in CST from 429 to 180 s following 30 min of pretreatment. Batch digestion assays presented an increase in the biogas yield to 0.135 L/g volatile solids (VS) after 60 min of EF pretreatment in comparison to raw sludge (0.08 L/g VS). Production of biogas was also found to improve during semi-continuous fermentation of EF-pretreated sludge conducted in a lab-scale reactor. In comparison to raw sludge, EF-pretreated sludge produced the highest biogas yield (0.81 L biogas/g VS) with a high COD removal rate, reaching 96.6% at an organic loading rate (OLR) of 2.5 g VS/L. d. Results revealed that the EF process could be an effective WAS disintegration method with maximum recovery of bioenergy during AD.

Production and characterization of ß-glucosidase from Aspergillus niger fermentation: Application for organic fraction of municipal solid waste hydrolysis and methane enhancement.

The anaerobic digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is currently an attractive treatment process with energy production in the form of biogas. Hydrolysis is the rate-limiting step for the anaerobic digestion of solid wastes. Thus, in the present study fungal enzymatic pretreatment of OFMSW was applied to enhance biogas production. Two enzyme cocktails rich on ß-glucosidase were produced from submerged fermentation of Aspergillus niger on basal medium using OFMSW as carbon source and urea (Urea cocktail) and Ulva rigida as nitrogen source (Ulva cocktail). Ulva cocktail displayed an important effect on OFMSW solubilization. Therefore, an increase of reducing sugar concentration about 60% was obtained which was in correlation with chemical oxygen demand (COD) increase. The performance of enzymatic pretreatment on anaerobic digestion of OFMSW was studied by conducting biochemical methane potential tests. Results showed that the enzymatic pretreatment improved methane yield of OFMSW even at high solid concentration. High methane yield about 500 ml/g total volatile solid was obtained, which corresponds up to 68% enhancement over the control.

Comparison between Thermo-Alkaline and Electro-Fenton Disintegration Effect on Waste Activated Sludge Anaerobic Digestion.

Disintegration of municipal waste activated sludge (WAS) using thermo-alkaline (TA) and electro-Fenton (EF) methods was investigated and compared in terms of the efficiency of sludge solubilisation and enhancement of anaerobic biodegradability. Performance of organic matter solubilisation (soluble COD, proteins, polysaccharides) of sludge pretreated with EF was proved to be better than that with TA pretreatment, which resulted in the enhancement of anaerobic biodegradability. Comparison of results indicated that percentages of PN and PS release obtained after EF pretreatment (68.95 and 65.22%) were higher than those obtained by TA method (45.25 and 35.22%) respectively. An improvement of biogas potential about 2 and 1.6 times was achieved respectively by EF and TA pretreatment in comparison to raw sludge. During semi-continuous fermentation study in continuous stirred tank reactor, EF pretreated sludge gave the best biogas yield (0.6 L biogas/g COD) at an OLR of 2.5 g COD/L. d in comparison to TA pretreated sludge (0.3 L biogas/g COD), where low biogas yield about 0.1 L biogas/g COD was registered by raw sludge in the same CSTR. Therefore, the integration of EF process to anaerobic digestion might be a promising process for sludge reduction and biogas recovery.

Improvement of anaerobic digestion of waste-activated sludge by using H2O2 oxidation, electrolysis, electro-oxidation and thermo-alkaline pretreatments.

Disintegration of municipal waste-activated sludge (WAS) is regarded as a prerequisite of the anaerobic digestion process to reduce sludge volume and improve biogas yield. Pretreatment of WAS using thermo-alkaline (TA), H2O2 oxidation, electrolysis and electro-oxidation (EO) processes were investigated and compared in term of COD solubilization and biogas production. For each pretreatment, the influences of different operational variables were studied in detail. At optimum conditions, EO gave the maximum COD solubilization (28 %). The effects of pretreatments under the optimum conditions on anaerobic digestion were experienced with biochemical methane potential assay. Significant increases in biogas yield up to 78 and 40 % were observed respectively in the EO and TA pretreated samples compared to raw sludge. Results clearly revealed that the application of EO is a significant alternative method for the improvement of WAS anaerobic digestion.

Optimization of anaerobic co-digestion of olive mill wastewater and liquid poultry manure in batch condition and semi-continuous jet-loop reactor.

Anaerobic co-digestion of olive mill wastewater (OMW) with liquid poultry manure (LPM) was investigated in a jet-loop reactor (JLR) as a new approach for upgrading the efficiency of bioprocess. Optimum proportion of LPM was evaluated by determining biochemical methane potential. Methane yields were compared by applying one way ANOVA method followed by post hoc Tukey's test with a 0.05 significance level. Results demonstrated that the addition of LPM at proportion of 10% and 30% (v/v) improved methane yield of OMW digestion but differences between these mixtures and raw OMW are not significant. JLR results confirmed that the proportion 30% LPM gives the optimum condition for excellent stability of digester. Methane production was significantly high until an organic loading rate of 9.5 gCOD/L reactor/day. Overall; this study indicates the technical feasibility and effectiveness of using JLR as one-stage anaerobic system for the co-digestion of OMW and LPM.

Changes in the content of bioactive polyphenolic compounds of olive mill wastewater by the action of exogenous enzymes.

The aim behind the present research is to develop an enzymatic treatment for olive mill wastewater (OMW) to release high amounts of simple phenolics having high antioxidant value. OMW was hydrolyzed by a mixed enzyme preparation rich in ß-glucosidase produced by Aspergillus niger . This research shows that A. niger ß-glucosidase played a major role in the release of simple phenolic compounds from OMW. These compounds were recovered by ethyl acetate extraction and identified by HPLC and LC-MS. The main identified phenolic compound is hydroxytyrosol. The results of enzymatic hydrolysis of OMW under optimum conditions indicated a maximum hydroxytyrosol concentration of 2.9 g L(-1) compared to 0.015 g L(-1) contained in the control (test without added enzyme). The above results prove that OMW is a potential substrate for producing hydroxytyrosol through enzymatic hydrolysis of its glycosides.

Enzymatic hydrolysis of olive wastewater for hydroxytyrosol enrichment.

Aspergillus niger broth culture on wheat bran was assessed for olive wastewater (OW) hydrolysis in order to release hydroxytyrosol (HT). The enzyme profiles of this culture broth gave essentially (IU/L): 3000 ß-glucosidase and 100 esterase. Hydrolysis activity of A. niger enzyme preparation was evaluated by using three substrates: raw OW, phenolic fraction extracted from OW by ethyl acetate and its corresponding exhausted fraction. Large amounts of free simple phenolics were released from exhausted fraction and raw OW after enzymatic treatment. HPLC analyses show that HT was the main phenolic compound. One step of ethyl acetate extraction of hydrolysed OW allowed the recovery of 0.8 g of HT per litre of OW. The antioxidant activity of extracts from OW and exhausted fraction, measured by DPPH method, was drastically enhanced after hydrolysis treatment. This study demonstrates that hydrolysed OW is a potential source of bioactive phenolic compounds with promising applications in food and pharmaceutical industries.

Extraction of antioxidants from olive mill wastewater and electro-coagulation of exhausted fraction to reduce its toxicity on anaerobic digestion.

Liquid-liquid extraction was used in order to recover phenolic compounds from centrifuged olive mill wastewater (OMW), a polluting by-product of olive oil production process, and to reduce their toxicity for a subsequent aerobic or anaerobic digestion. Phenolic compounds were identified in untreated and treated OMW by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The experimental results of ethyl acetate extraction showed that the monomers recovery efficiency was over 90%. This pre-treatment resulted in the removal of the major LMM phenolic compounds and a small part of HMM polyphenols. The aerobic treatment of the exhausted OMW fraction removed 78.7% of the soluble COD. In the case of anaerobic digestion at OLR ranged from 1 to 3.5 gCOD l(-1)day(-1), methanisation process exhibited high methane yield as 0.3 l CH4 produced per g COD introduced and high COD removal (80%). However, a disruption of the process was observed when the OLR was increased to 4.5 gCODl(-1)day(-1). A pre-treatment by electro-coagulation resulted in decreasing the toxicity and enhancing the performance of methanisation operated at higher OLR from 4 to 7.5 gCODl(-1)day(-1).

Detoxification of olive mill wastewater by electrocoagulation and sedimentation processes.

Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is characterised by its high suspended solids content (SS), high turbidity (NTU), chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration up to 100 gl(-1) and toxic phenolic compounds concentration up to 10 gl(-1). This study examined the effect of a physico-electrochemical method to detoxify olive mill wastewater prior an anaerobic biotreatment process. The proposed pre-treatment process consisted in a preliminary electrocoagulation step in which most phenolic compounds were polymerised, followed by a sedimentation step. The BOD(5)/COD ratio of the electrocoagulated OMW increased from 0.33, initial value, to 0.58. Furthermore, the sedimentation step yielded the removal of 76.2%, 75% and 71% of phenolic compounds, turbidity and suspended solid, respectively, after 3 days of plain settling. The combination of electrocoagulation and sedimentation allowed a COD reduction and decoloration of about 43% and 90%, respectively. This pre-treatment decreases the inhibition of Vibrio fisheri luminescence by 66.4%. Continuous anaerobic biomethanization experiments conducted in parallel with raw OMW and electrocoagulated OMW before and after sedimentation at a loading rate of 6g COD l(-1)day(-1), proved that the final pre-treated OMW was bioconverted into methane at high yield while raw OMW was very toxic to anaerobic microorganisms.

Treatment of olive oil mill wastewater by combined process electro-Fenton reaction and anaerobic digestion.

In this work, we investigated an integrated technology for the treatment of the recalcitrant contaminants of olive mill wastewaters (OMW), allowing water recovery and reuse for agricultural purposes. The method involves an electrochemical pre-treatment step of the wastewater using the electro-Fenton reaction followed by an anaerobic bio-treatment. The electro-Fenton process removed 65.8% of the total polyphenolic compounds and subsequently decreased the OMW toxicity from 100% to 66.9%, which resulted in improving the performance of the anaerobic digestion. A continuous lab-scale methanogenic reactor was operated at a loading rate of 10 g chemical oxygen demand (COD)l(-1) d(-1) without any apparent toxicity. Furthermore, in the combined process, a high overall reduction in COD, suspended solids, polyphenols and lipid content was achieved by the two successive stages. This result opens promising perspectives since its conception as a fast and cheap pre-treatment prior to conventional anaerobic post-treatment. The use of electro-coagulation as post-treatment technology completely detoxified the anaerobic effluent and removed its toxic compounds.