The impact of ammonia nitrogen concentration and zeolite addition on the specific methanogenic activity of granular and flocculent anaerobic sludges

Abstract

This work presents the effect of ammonia nitrogen concentration and zeolite addition on the specific methanogenic activity (SMA) of different anaerobic sludges with various physical structures (granular and flocculent), operating in batch conditions. Piggery, malting production and urban sludges derived from full-scale anaerobic reactors were tested in the experiment as the source of inoculum in batch digesters. It was found that piggery sludge was the most affected by the increase of ammonia nitrogen concentration while malting producing and municipal sludges were less affected. In general, the addition of zeolite at doses in the range of 0.01-0.1 g/g VSS reduced the inhibitory effect of N-NH(4)(+) for piggery sludge (P.S.). For this sludge, the propionic:acetic ratio increased when the concentration of N-NH(4)(+) increased, indicating that methanogenesis was affected. Finally, a study of the microbial population involved in this study for P.S. by using 16S rRNA based molecular techniques revealed a presence of microorganisms following the order: Methanococcaceae > Methanosarcina > Methanosaeta.

Influence of the food to microorganisms (F/M) ratio and temperature on batch anaerobic digestion processes with and without zeolite addition

“…To solve this problem, reactors have been designed with supports that fix the biomass and result in high loading densities and low hydraulic retention times. [1][2][3][4] With the increase of population density on the given support, there is a greater change in cross-feeding, co-metabolism and interspecies hydrogen and proton transfer, which may further stimulate the growth of microcolonies. The use of a porous support such as zeolite enables the anaerobic reactor to retain high biomass concentrations and thereby operate at significantly reduced hydraulic retention times.…”

“…This can significantly reduce operational costs compared with the high energy-consuming aerobic process. [2,3] However, one of the greatest problems in the anaerobic processing of wastewaters is the loss of biomass in systems with high hydraulic loading rates. To solve this problem, reactors have been designed with supports that fix the biomass and result in high loading densities and low hydraulic retention times.…”

Inoculum Selection and Micro-Aeration for Biogas Production in Two-Stage Anaerobic Digestion of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME)

“…Biofilm formation is then quite beneficial for bioprocess in waste treatment because biofilm enables cross-feeding, co-metabolism, and interspecies hydrogen and proton transfers which improves colony stability upon fluctuating conditions in the waste water (Montalvo et al, 2012). Biocarriers also increase Solid Retention Time (SRT) so that their application effectively reduces the risk of microbial washout when the reactor is operated at high feed flow rate (Milán et al, 2010). The features of AFBR make it possible to be operated efficiently and can be designed as vertical column which does not need large land area (Ramadhani et al, 2018).…”

Treatment of petroleum wastewater using an up‐flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor and turf soil as a support material

“…Support materials can act as nucleation points for initial microorganism attachment and accumulation leading to granule community development . Materials such as zeolite, oyster shell, activated carbon, ceramsite and fly ash have all been used successfully to facilitate granular formation for the treatment of brewery, textile, piggery and glucose synthetic wastewaters …”

“…9 Materials such as zeolite, oyster shell, activated carbon, ceramsite and fly ash have all been used successfully to facilitate granular formation for the treatment of brewery, textile, piggery and glucose synthetic wastewaters. 8,10 Turf soils are commercially available and economical. They are highly porous and have large surface areas that can potentially accelerate sludge granulation.…”