• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.84-89
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and improve the pre-treatment facility for foodwaste and sewage sludge mixture treatment. The process of foodwaste pre-treatment consists of storage, classification with crushing, and thickening. The effluent of sewage treatment facility was used as the diluting and washing water. The panicle size of foodwaste after pre-treatment was almost under 2mm, the mixture of foodwastes and sewage sludge showed an advantage to the anaerobic digestion. The amount of gas production increased from 0.8ton/day ($CH_4$ : 0.5ton/day) to 3.5ton/day ($CH_4$ : 2.3ton/day) after the anaerobic digestion of the foodwastes and sewage sludge mixture. The amount of sludge cake increased from 11.2ton/day to 21.2ton/day. Therefore, the proper operation of the foodwaste pre-treatment facility was contributed to the efficient anaerobic digestion of foodwaste and sewage sludge mixture treatment.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 1997

This study was carried out to investigate factors affecting anaerobic digestion enhancement of waste activated sludge(WAS). In order to this investigation, the degradability and rupture of microorganisms cell present in WAS, and mesophilic anaerobic digestion(MAD) of these compounds, were also evaluated. The micro-organisms cell in WAS were ruptured by a mechanical jet stream and smashed under pressure of 30 bar. The rupture level of micro-organisms cell in WAS were determined using phosphate, soluble protein and soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD)concentrations. It was found that the rupture level of micro- organisms cell within WAS increased with increasing pretreatment times, and the pretreated WAS once under pressure of 30 bar resulted in an increase in VS removal and methane production of 5%, 9% over the intact WAS of 35%, 71%, respectively, in batchwise MAD of 6-day and 14-day retention time. With the pretreatment and MAD of 6-day retention time used, mesophlic bioconvertibility as the biogasification of WAS were found to be significantly higher biogas of 1, 850 ml than 300 ml under intact WAS. In conclusion it can be stated mechanical pretreatment enhances WAS bioconvertibility, while under identical treatment conditions, resulted in a considerable decrease in the bioconvertibility of intact WAS.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.53-63
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• 2018

The hydrolysis of organic solid waste, such as sludge, is the rate-limiting step of the anaerobic digestion. The longer rate-limiting step lead to decrease of treatment efficiency and increase hydraulic retention time and anaerobic digester. Therefore, the pre-treatment has been applied for accelerating the hydrolysis step. This study was investigated the effects of pre-treatment of waste activated sludge using ultrasonic and alkaline integrated treatment simultaneously. The results showed the cumulative methane production and the methane production rate increased while the lag phase decreased. Therefore ultrasonic and alkaline integrated pre-treatment of waste activated sludge resulted in acceleration of hydrolysis step in anaerobic digestion.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2023

This study evaluated the biochemical methane potential (BMP) of primary sludge, secondary sludge, and food waste in batch anaerobic mono-digestion tests, and investigated the effects of mixture ratio of those organic wastes on methane yield and production rate in batch anaerobic co-digestion tests, that were designed based on a simplex mixture design method. The BMP of primary sludge, secondary sludge and food waste were determined as 234.2, 172.7, and 379.1 mL CH₄/g COD, respectively. The relationships between the mixing ratio of those organic wastes with methane yield and methane production rate were successfully expressed in special cubic models. Both methane yield and methane production rate were estimated as higher when the mixture ratio of food waste was higher. At a mixing ratio of 0.5 and 0.5 for primary sludge and food waste, the methane yield of 297.9 mL CH₄/g COD was expected; this was 19.4% higher than that obtained at a mixing ratio of 0.3333, 0.3333 and 0.3333 for primary sludge, secondary sludge, and food waste (249.5 mL CH₄/g COD). These findings could be useful when designing field-scale anaerobic digersters for mono- and co-digestion of sewage sludges and food waste.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.1051-1059
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• 2022

This study investigated microbial communities and their diversity in a full-scale mesophilic anaerobic digester treating sewage sludge. Influent sewage sludge and anaerobic digester samples collected from a wastewater treatment plant in Busan were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. It was found that the microbial community structure and diversity in the anaerobic digester could be affected by inoculation effect with influent sewage sludge. Nevertheless, distinct microbial communities were identified as the dominant microbial communities in the anaerobic digester. Twelve genera were identified as abundant bacterial communities, which included several groups of syntrophic bacteria communities, such as Candidatus Cloacimonas, Cloacimonadaceae W5, Smithella, which are (potential) syntrophic-propionate-oxidizing bacteria and Mesotoga and Thermovigra, which are (potential) syntrophic-acetate-oxidizing bacteria. Lentimicrobium, the most abundant genus in the anaerobic digester, may contribute to the decomposition of carbohydrates and the production of volatile fatty acids during the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. Of the methanogens identified, Methanollinea, Candidatus Methanofastidiosum, Methanospirillum, and Methanoculleus were the dominant hydrogenotrophic methanogens, and Methanosaeta was the dominant aceticlastic methanogens. The findings may be used as a reference for developing microbial indicators to evaluate the process stability and process efficiency of the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1513-1518
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• 2017

Anaerobic mono- and co-digestion of sewage sludge and food waste leachate (FWL) were performed by assessing methane production and characterizing microbial communities. Anaerobic digestion (AD) of waste activated sludge (WAS) alone produced the lowest methane ($281ml\;CH_4$), but an approximately 80% increase in methane production was achieved via co-digestion of WAS and FWL ($506ml\;CH_4$). There were less differences in the diversity of bacterial communities in anaerobic digesters, while archaeal (ARC) and bacterial (BAC) amounts reflected AD performance. Compared with the total ARC and BAC amounts in the mono-digestion of WAS, the ARC and BAC amounts increased two and three times, respectively, during co-digestion of FWL and WAS. In characterized archaeal communities, the dominant ratio of hydrogenotrophic methanogens in the mono-digestion of WAS approached nearly a 1:1 ratio of the two acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic methanogens in the co-digestion of FWL and WAS. The ARC/BAC ratio in the digesters varied in the range of 5.9% to 9.1%, indicating a positive correlation with the methane production of AD.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.53-61
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• 2018

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is one of the most widely used process that can convert the organic fraction of waste activated sludge (WAS) into biogas. However, most researched actual methane yields of anaerobic digester (AD) on lab scale is lower than theoretical ones. Bioelectrochemical, anaerobic digester was used to increase methane yield from waste activated sludge. The influence of anaerobic digestion sludge and raw sludge mixing ratio (3:7, 5:5) on methane yield and organic matter removal efficiency were explored. As a result, when the mixing ratio of bioelectrochemical anaerobic sludge was 5:5 compared with 3:7, the highest methane yields were 294.2 mL $CH_4/L$ (0.63 times increase) and 52.5% (7.5% increase), the bioelectrochemical anaerobic digester(5:5) was more stable in the pH, t otal alkalinity and VFAs, respectively. These results showed that the increase in the mixing ratio of anaerobic digestion sludge was found to be effective for maintaining the stable performance of bioelectrochemical anaerobic digester.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.143-148
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• 2006

The ultrasonics is a new technology in waste activated sludge(WAS) treatment. Ultrasonic treatment is well known method for the break up of microbial cells to extract out a variety of intercellular materials inside microorganism cell. This study was done to investigate the effects of the ultrasonic frequency and power on disruption of biosolids in WAS and to examine the effect on methane production of WAS treated by ultrasonics. Biosolids disruption with ultrasound is more effective at ultrasonic frequency of 40 kHz and power of 0.3 watt/mL. In the digestion with WAS pretreated by sonication time for 10 minute at 40 kHz and 0.3 watt/mL, the total quantity of generated methane increased by 75%, as compared with experimental control(non-treatment).

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.125-136
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• 1992

Digestion of a municipal wastewater sludge by the anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) was investigated to evaluate the performance of the ASBR process at a critical condition of high-solids-content fined. The reactors were operated at an HRT of 10 days with an equivalent loading rate of 0.8-1.5 gVS/L/d at 35$^{\circ}C$ The main conclusions drawn from this study were as follows: 1. Digestion of a municipal wastewater sludge was possible using the ASBR in spite of high concentration of settleable solids in the sludge. The ASBRS with 3- and 4-day cycle period showed almost identical high digestion performances. 2. No adverse effect on digestion stability was observed In the ASBRS in spite of withdrawal and replenishment of 30% or 40% of liquid contents. A conventional anaerobic digester could be easily converted to the ASBR without any stability problem. 3. Flotation thickening occurred in thicken step of the ASBRS throughout steady state, and floating bed volume at the end of thicken period occupied about 70% of the working volume of the reactor Efficiency of flotation thickening in the ASBRS could be comparable to that of additional gravity thickening of a completely mixed digester. 4. Solids were accumulated rapidly in the ASBR during start-up period. Solids concentrations in the ASBRS were 2.6 times higher than that in the completely mixed control reactor at steady state. Dehydrogenase activity had a strong correlation with the solids concentration. Dehydrogenase activity of the digested flu형e in the ASBR was 2.9 times higher than that of the flu형e in the control reactor, and about 25 times higher than that of the subnatant in the ASBR. 5. Remarkable increase in equivalent gas production of 52% was observed at the ASBRS compared with the control reactor in spite of similar quality of clarified effluent from the ASBRS and control reactor. The increase in gas production from the ASBRS was believed to be combined results of accumulation of microorganisms, higher driving force applied, and additional long-term degradation of organics continuously accumulated.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.516-522
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• 2011

The largest problem of domestic anaerobic digestion is low digestion efficiency. Reasons of the problem would be low organic matters input, low mixing efficiency in digestion tank, refractory excess sludge etc.. In this study, screw attached disk-type concentration system and a mechanical mixing system, solubilization facility improvements were performed to solve problems. Through these improvements, the sludge conc. of the concentrator increased 2.6-fold and the volume reduction efficiency was increased 3.0-fold. In addition, the dead-space is reduced by mechanical agitation. Anaerobic digester gas production in the digestion tank is increased from $193.8m^3$ to $386.0m^3$ per day. Digestion efficiency is improved to 54.6% from 47.6%. Digestion gas production is increased from $0.30Nm^3/kg$ VS to $0.42Nm^3/kg$ VS.