Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 14823

Special Issue Editors

Laboratory of Integrated Transformation of Renewable Resources (TIMR UTC-ESCOM), Alliance Sorbonne Université – Université de Technologie de Compiègne, Compiègne, France
Interests: anaerobic digestion; biogas; wastewater treatment; lignocellulosic biomass; bioprocess engineering; biochemistry; biotechnology; environment; soil
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
ULR7519 Transformations & AgroRessources, Institut Polytechnique UniLaSalle, Beauvais, France
Interests: anaerobic digestion; biogas; lignocellulosic biomass; bioprocess engineering; biochemistry; microbiology; water and wastewater treatment; environment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a natural process carried out by anaerobic microorganisms, which offers many advantages in regard to the production of renewable energy. AD produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas that can also be captured and used for fuel production; therefore, it is a key measure for decreasing greenhouse gases. Typically, AD has been used with wastewater sludge treatment, agricultural manure management and food waste management. For wastewater treatment, AD processes are usually used for treating sludge to produce energy, decreasing its volume and increasing its dewaterability. About half of the sludge is converted into gases, while the remainder is dried and becomes a residual soil-like material. Sludge can also be codigested with other byproducts like agricultural waste (straw, manure), household waste or food waste. In this case, solid AD processes, also called dry anaerobic digestion, can be used. The latter concerns a process for the degradation of high total solid (TS > 15 % w/w) content.

Despite the existence of numerous full-scale industrial solid reactors, many research works are still carried out in AD and are focused on current limitations (such as BMP, which refers to the design of the reactors, codigestion, inhibition, life cycle analysis, stability and resiliency of the process, as well as social acceptance, etc.) in order to develop AD processes.

This Special Issue aims to encourage researchers to find solutions in order to overcome these limitations.

Prof. Dr. Andre Pauss
Prof. Dr. Thierry Ribeiro
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • anaerobic digestion
  • wastewater treatment
  • on-line sensors
  • codigestion
  • modeling
  • microbial community
  • life cycle analysis

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2967 KiB  
Article
Growth of Microalgae-Bacteria Flocs for Nutrient Recycling from Digestate and Liquid Slurry and Methane Production by Anaerobic Digestion
by Olfa Béji, Nouceiba Adouani, Souhila Poncin and Huai-Zhi Li
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(15), 7634; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12157634 - 28 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1090
Abstract
Biogas production by anaerobic digestion from different wastes represents a growing interest in the panel of renewable energy. Digestate has already been a subject of numerous studies as part of microalgal culturing because it is still rich in nutrients. This study wants to [...] Read more.
Biogas production by anaerobic digestion from different wastes represents a growing interest in the panel of renewable energy. Digestate has already been a subject of numerous studies as part of microalgal culturing because it is still rich in nutrients. This study wants to use it as a reference to investigate the possibility to exploit Slurry for the same applications. The first part of this research aims to evaluate microalgae-bacterial flocs growth for nutrient recycling from liquid digestate and slurry, working at three different dilutions (10%, 30%, and 50%) of these two substrates, in order to determine the best value for nutrients and pollutants removal (ammonia and chemical oxygen demand removal rate) and microalgae-bacterial biomass production (autotrophic index). The best dilutions were 30% for digestate and 10% for slurry, allowing the highest ammonia and chemical oxygen demand removal rates. The second part evaluated methane production during anaerobic digestion at different ratios of substrate/inoculum (0.2, 0.5, and 0.8), using microalgae-bacterial flocs as a substrate and digestate or slurry as the inoculum. After 30 days, the anaerobic digestion without flocs showed the best performance compared to digestion with flocs (726.7 mL CH4·g−1 slurry, 245.6 mL CH4·g−1 digestate), whereas, for flocs digestion, the best ratio for both inocula was 0.2 substrate/inoculum with 317.2 mL CH4·g−1 slurry and 165.7 mL CH4·g−1 digestate. All solid masses are expressed in terms of volatile solids (VS). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment)
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9 pages, 850 KiB  
Article
Underestimation of Dry Matter of Anaerobic Media with High Bicarbonate Concentration
by Thierry Ribeiro, Laura André, Xiaojun Liu, Maël Mercier-Huat, Joseph Fayolle, Jean-Marie Grosmaître and André Pauss
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(3), 1105; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12031105 - 21 Jan 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1556
Abstract
In the anaerobic digestion world, the dry matter (DM) and organic matter (OM) contents of the samples are major data for the design, handling, and maintenance of the processing of biogas plants. Volatile compounds, such as volatile fatty acids and ammonia, are likely [...] Read more.
In the anaerobic digestion world, the dry matter (DM) and organic matter (OM) contents of the samples are major data for the design, handling, and maintenance of the processing of biogas plants. Volatile compounds, such as volatile fatty acids and ammonia, are likely to volatilize during drying at 105 °C and, thus, distort DM values; they have been described at length in the literature. On the other hand, the partial decomposition of bicarbonate, present in the digestion media, has been little described in the scientific literature. In this work, it appears that, in accordance with the stoichiometry of the partial decomposition of bicarbonate into CO2 and H2O, about 37% is volatilized as early as 70 °C and a fortiori at 105 °C, whether in aqueous solutions of pure bicarbonate or in different real digester media. With freeze-drying, no degradation of bicarbonate was observed, confirming the thermo-dependence of this reaction. This decomposition leads to an underestimation of DM measurements and some erroneous DM mass balances. It also led to an indirect overestimation of the OM, when expressed as a percentage of the DM. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment)
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14 pages, 16221 KiB  
Article
Accurate Estimation of Bicarbonate and Acetic Acid Concentrations with Wider Ranges in Anaerobic Media Using Classical FOS/TAC Titration Method
by Xiaojun Liu, Laura André, Maël Mercier-Huat, Jean-Marie Grosmaître, André Pauss and Thierry Ribeiro
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(24), 11843; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112411843 - 13 Dec 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4736
Abstract
The determination of a volatile fatty acid content (FOS) and total alkalinity (TAC) can be carried out using Nordmann’s FOS/TAC titration method developed in the 1970s. This two-point titration (pH = 5 and 4.4) can be simply implemented and is widely employed by [...] Read more.
The determination of a volatile fatty acid content (FOS) and total alkalinity (TAC) can be carried out using Nordmann’s FOS/TAC titration method developed in the 1970s. This two-point titration (pH = 5 and 4.4) can be simply implemented and is widely employed by both the academic and industrial worlds. However, the present study proves that Nordmann’s method is only valid in limited ranges, since the titration of one FOS and TAC has an impact on the determination of the other, especially in extreme conditions. The present work develops a numerical tool with Scilab simulating the acid–base equilibria of titration. The program is efficient in predicting the experimental equivalent volumes obtained from Nordmann’s method with different combinations of sodium acetate and sodium bicarbonate contents. The mean absolute percentage errors (MAPE) between the simulation and experiment are below 7%. Two new formulas are developed, considering both equivalent volumes at pH = 5 and 4.4 to calibrate FOS and TAC values. The proposed formulas show their good performance in predicting various combinations of FOS and TAC contents in an anaerobic digestate at TAC ranging from 0 to 20,000 mg CaCO3·L−1 and FOS ranging from 0 to 31,000 mg HAc·L−1. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment)
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25 pages, 13682 KiB  
Article
Opportunistic Strategy for Maintenance Interventions Planning: A Case Study in a Wastewater Treatment Plant
by Pablo Viveros, Leonardo Miqueles, Rodrigo Mena and Fredy Kristjanpoller
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10853; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112210853 - 17 Nov 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4759
Abstract
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) face two fundamental challenges: on the one hand, they must ensure an efficient application of preventive maintenance plans for their survival under competitive environments; and on the other hand, they must simultaneously comply with the requirements of reliability, maintainability, [...] Read more.
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) face two fundamental challenges: on the one hand, they must ensure an efficient application of preventive maintenance plans for their survival under competitive environments; and on the other hand, they must simultaneously comply with the requirements of reliability, maintainability, and safety of their operations, ensuring environmental care and the quality of their effluents for human consumption. In this sense, this article seeks to propose a cost-efficient alternative for the execution of preventive maintenance (PM) plans through the formulation and optimization of the opportunistic grouping strategy with time-window tolerances and non-negligible execution times. The proposed framework is applied to a PM plan for critical high-risk activities, addressing primary treatment and anaerobic sludge treatment process in a wastewater treatment plant. Results show a 26% system inefficiency reduction versus the initial maintenance plan, demonstrating the capacity of the framework to increase the availability of the assets and reduce maintenance interruptions of the WWTP under analysis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment)
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14 pages, 1962 KiB  
Article
Criticality Analysis Based on Reliability and Failure Propagation Effect for a Complex Wastewater Treatment Plant
by Fredy Kristjanpoller, Nicolás Cárdenas-Pantoja, Pablo Viveros and Rodrigo Mena
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10836; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112210836 - 16 Nov 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1956
Abstract
Wastewater treatment is a critical and necessary task every human settlement is obligated to address. If not, the consequences might be catastrophic, not just for humans but for the ecosystems as well, pushing research into finding new ways to improve wastewater treatment processes [...] Read more.
Wastewater treatment is a critical and necessary task every human settlement is obligated to address. If not, the consequences might be catastrophic, not just for humans but for the ecosystems as well, pushing research into finding new ways to improve wastewater treatment processes to make them safer and more efficient. Hence, there is a need to address matters, such as reliability and maintainability of Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP), when analyzing the availability and operational conditions. These should be addressed by analyzing the plant operational effectiveness impact (P-OEI), and in this article specifically, a WWTP study case to identify design flaws or improvement opportunities. A vital aspect of a complex system is to determine the contribution to resilience, reliability, and availability of every element embedded in the system. This is performed by adapting and applying the P-OEI methodology and real data of a WWTP located in Chile. This methodology breaks down the system into several levels of disaggregation similar to RBD methodology, analyzing the upstream for availability and the downstream for the P-OEI analysis from the system itself to the individual elements within subsystems. The potential impact on the overall system’s lack of efficiency is also quantified by an Expected Operational Impact (EOI) index, which is also calculated by the methodology. The P-OEI and EOI analyses performed in this study are powerful tools to assess the design and performance of complex systems and WWTP in particular. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment)
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