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Article history:
Received 6 March 2014
Accepted 29 November 2014
Available online 12 December 2014
Keywords:
Sewage sludge
Volatile fatty acid
Anaerobic fermentation
Filtration resistance
a b s t r a c t
The ltration characteristics of untreated sewage sludge, thermal alkaline pretreated and anaerobic fermented sewage sludge were investigated in the process of fatty acids production. The ltration resistance, viscosity, particle size, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and soluble microbial products
(SMP) were determined to identify the ltration characteristics of the sewage sludge. The results indicated that thermal alkaline pretreatment signicantly increased the ltration resistance and viscosity
of the sewage sludge, while anaerobic fermentation decreased the ltration resistance. The particle size
of the sewage sludge decreased after pretreatment and fermentation. Moreover, the EPS concentration in
the sludge sharply decreased after thermal alkaline pretreatment and then increased after the following
fermentation. The mechanism of the increase of sludge ltration resistance after pretreatment could be
attributed to the release of EPS from the microbial cells of the sludge. The degradation and conversion of
SMP into volatile fatty acids could explain the decrease in the ltration resistance after fermentation.
2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
1. Introduction
The amount of sewage sludge produced in China has increased
signicantly because of urbanization and increased wastewater
treatment capacity. Because of land scarcity and increasingly stringent air pollution control regulations, sludge disposal by landll
and incineration may not be appropriate in the near future. Volatile
fatty acids (VFA) production from sewage sludge by anaerobic fermentation is a promising method for recycling of the sewage
sludge because it has a high organic matter (e.g. protein, carbohydrate) content [1,2]. The VFA can be used as an alternative carbon
source to improve biological nitrogen and phosphorous removal in
the wastewater treatment process [35]. Additionally, VFA have a
number of potential uses in various industries [6].
However, the separation of VFA from the anaerobic fermented
sewage is challenging [7]. Recently, several publications reported
membrane technology as a cost-effective method for VFA separation [8]. To date, a number of studies have investigated the ltration characteristics and mechanisms of activated sludge in
membrane bioreactors for the wastewater treatment [9]. However,
there is little information about sludge characteristics with high
solid concentrations during the process of anaerobic digestion,
Corresponding authors. Tel./fax: +86 85326670.
E-mail addresses: zhuyanfangjn@126.com (Y.F. Zhu), liuhongbo@jiangnan.edu.
cn (H.B. Liu), liuhe@jiangnan.edu.cn (H. Liu), huangshuai@126.com (S. Huang),
834876777@qq.com (H.J. Ma), tianyue1026@126.com (Y. Tian).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2014.11.037
1383-5866/ 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
especially in anaerobic fermented sewage sludge for VFA production. Because the physical and chemical features of sludge inuence membrane ltration, it is necessary to investigate the
characteristics of fermented sewage sludge.
To achieve a high VFA yield, sewage sludge pretreatment before
fermentation, such as thermal or/and alkaline pretreatment, is usually used to improve the solubility of organic matter in solid
sludge. Ahn [3] reported that thermal pretreatment increased
sludge dewaterability through the destruction of the sludge oc
structure. Chen et al. [10] observed that acidic pretreatment
improved the dewaterability of sludge. However, to our best
knowledge, there is no information about how alkaline pre-treatment inuences the ltration characteristics of sludge. Earlier
results have indicated that extracellular polymeric substances
(EPS) and soluble microbial products (SMP) are the most important
substances inuencing membrane ltration resistance [2,11].
Organic matter, including EPS and SMP, will be solubilized during
the pretreatment process and consumed and converted into VFA
during acidogenic fermentation. Because the major components
of EPS and SMP are proteins and polysaccharides, the proles of
these substances should be studied during the processes of pretreatment and anaerobic fermentation.
We hypothesized that alkaline pretreatment would decrease
the dewaterability of sewage sludge, while anaerobic fermentation
would improve the dewaterability. The aims of this research were
to explore the ltration characteristics of acidogenic fermented
Y.F. Zhu et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 142 (2015) 813
DP
lJ
2.3. Analysis
Total solids (TS) and volatile solids (VS) measurements were
carried out according to standard methods [19]. For VFA measurement, the sludge samples were centrifuged at 7000 rpm for 10 min.
The supernatants were ltrated through 0.45 lm lter membranes. A gas chromatograph (GC-2010, Shimadzu Co., Kyoto,
Japan) equipped with an auto injector (AOC-20i, Shimadzu Co.)
was used to measure the concentrations of the VFA. The GC was
also equipped with a ame ionization detector and a fused-silica
capillary (PEG-20M, 30 m 0.32 mm, 0.5 lm, China). 4-Methylvaleric acid was added as an internal standard and the samples were
acidied with 3 mol/L phosphoric acid [20]. The GC column was
initially held at 80 C for 3 min, increased by 15 C/min to a nal
temperature of 210 C, and then held at this temperature for
2 min. The injection port and detector temperatures were both
250 C. The total VFAs concentrations were calculated as a sum
of the individual VFA concentrations.
The EPS and SMP were extracted and analyzed by the phenol/
sulfuric acid method [21] and Coomassie Brilliant Blue method
[22].
The ltration resistance of the sludge slurry was measured by
pouring 50 mL of sludge slurry rapidly into a glass funnel containing a folded lter paper, and measuring the volume of ltrate
Fig. 1. VFA proles during the anaerobic acidogenic fermentation of sewage sludge,
A: 35 g/L sludge with pretreatment; B: 75 g/L sludge with pretreatment; C: 35 g/L
sludge without pretreatment; D: 75 g/L sludge without pretreatment.
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Y.F. Zhu et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 142 (2015) 813
with a TS of 75 g/L was 1.3 times higher (at 7.31 0.24 g/L) than
that with a TS of 35 g/L (at 5.55 0.35 g/L). When sewage sludge
was anaerobically fermented without thermal alkaline pretreatment, the highest VFA concentrations at TS values of 75 g/L and
35 g/L were 4.63 0.43 g/L and 3.15 0.54 g/L, respectively. Based
on the results in Fig. 1b, the VFA yields were 149.47
22.51 mg COD/g VS, 189.90 28.59 mg COD/g VS, 214.32 39.16
mg COD/g VS, and 289.00 52.80 mg COD/g VS for the 75 g/L
un-pretreated, 75 g/L pretreated, 35 g/L un-pretreated, and 35 g/L
pretreated sewage sludge, respectively. With acidogenic fermentation, the VFA yields for TS values of 75 g/L and 35 g/L with pretreatment were 27.05% and 34.86% higher, respectively, than those for
sludge without pretreatment. According to the results of Liu
et al. [18], total VFA yields of pretreated and un-pretreated sewage
sludge were 279.6 mg COD/g VS and 213.2 mg COD/g VS, respectively. The VFA yields of this study are very similar to our previous
research. Chen et al. [23] reported that pretreatment of sludge was
benecial for VFA production, and this agrees with the results in
the present study.
Fig. 2. Changes in the ltration resistance and viscosity of sewage sludge with or
without pretreatment A: 35 g/L sludge with pretreatment; B: 75 g/L sludge with
pretreatment; C: 35 g/L sludge without pretreatment; D: 75 g/L sludge without
pretreatment.
The particle size distribution of sludge is an important parameter affecting the sludge dewaterability [28,29]. As shown in Fig. 3,
the particle size decreased after fermentation for both the 35 g/L
and 75 g/L sludges, regardless of whether the sludge was pretreated or not. For the 35 g/L sludge without pretreatment, the
cumulative percentage of fermented sludge with a particle size
below 100 lm shifted from 55.61% to 63.22%, while for the pretreated sludge it increased from 55.84% to 80.87%. The cumulative
percentage of thermal alkaline pretreated sludge with a particle
size below 100 lm increased by 44.82% and that for un-pretreated
sludge only increased by 13.68%. A similar trend was also observed
for the 75 g/L sludge. The cumulative percentages of sludge with
particle sizes below 100 lm increased by 56.32% and 46.01% for
thermal alkaline treated and un-pretreated sludge, respectively.
It should be noted that the peak of the particle size distribution
of the untreated sewage sludge was 149 lm with percentages of
3.25% and 3.28% for the 35 g/L and 75 g/L sludge, respectively.
However, the peak of the particle size distribution for the 35 g/L
sludge shifted to 30.6 lm with a percentage of 2.93% without pretreatment, and shifted to 27.9 lm with a percentage of 3.28% with
pretreatment. For the 75 g/L sludge, the peak moved to 27.9 lm
Y.F. Zhu et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 142 (2015) 813
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Fig. 3. The particle sizes of the sewage sludge (a) 35 g/L sludge with pretreatment; (b) 75 g/L sludge with pretreatment; (c) 35 g/L sludge without pretreatment; (d) 75 g/L
sludge without pretreatment d original sludge; s fermented sludge.
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Y.F. Zhu et al. / Separation and Purication Technology 142 (2015) 813
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge support from the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51208231), Natural Science
Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (Grant No. BK2012121),
and the Environmental Protection Department of Jiangsu Province
(Grant No. 2012035).
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Fig. 4. The concentration of EPS (a) and SMP (b) during the anaerobic fermentation.
A: 35 g/L sludge with pretreatment; B: 75 g/L sludge with pretreatment; C: 35 g/L
sludge without pretreatment; D: 75 g/L sludge without pretreatment.
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