ABSTRACT
To improve anaerobic digestion and dewatering of sludge, impacts of sludge pretreated by microwave (MW) and its combined processes on sludge anaerobic digestion and dewatering were investigated. The results showed that microwave and its combined processes could effectively enhance anaerobic sludge digestion. Not only the cumulative methane production in the test of the MW-H2O2-alkaline (0. 2) was increased by 13. 34% compared with the control, but also its methane production rate was much higher than that of the control. Compared with the single MW process, the addition of both H2O2 and alkaline enhanced the solubilization of particle COD( >0. 45 micron) , indicating that synergistically generated soluble organics were faster to biodegrade which resulted in the enhancement of anaerobic digestion. The MW-acid process was effective in improving sludge dewaterability, e. g. , Capillary Suction Time (CST) at only 9. 85 s. The improvement of sludge dewatering was significantly correlated with sludge physical properties such as zeta potential, surface charge density and particle size. Under different sludge pretreatment conditions, the sludge dewatering after anaerobic digestion was similar, though the difference of sludge dewatering to some degrees was observed for pretreated sludge.
