Renewable Energy 96 (2016) 1086e1092

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Biodegradation of particulate organics and its enhancement during

anaerobic co-digestion of municipal biowaste and waste activated
sludge
Xingbao Gao a, *, Xiao Liu b, Wei Wang c
a
b
c

State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
China Urban Construction Design & Research Institute, Beijing 100120, China
School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 1 October 2015
Received in revised form
16 December 2015
Accepted 3 January 2016
Available online 14 January 2016

Biodegradation of particulate organics is considered to be as an essential factor in the anaerobic codigestion performance and biogas recovery of biowaste. To determine the rate-limiting step of particulate organics hydrolysis during co-digestion of municipal biowaste and waste activated sludge (WAS),
the particle size distribution of organic compounds before and after digestion was examined for a
mesophilic co-digestion system. As organic load rate increased and hydraulic retention time decreased,
the removal rate of big-size particulate organics did not change signicantly, indicating that the disintegration of big particles is not the rate-limiting step, while soluble organics accumulated in the
digestate. This implies that the enzymatic hydrolysis of soluble organics is the rate-limiting step in the
hydrolysis process. Addition of WAS to substrate did not signicantly change the removal rate of particulate organics >420 mm, while the residual content of particulate organics 0.45e74 mm in size
increased because the non-biodegradable organics in WAS were in this size range. After biodegradability
enhancement of WAS by hydrothermal pretreatment, the removal rate of particulate organics increased
signicantly. Thus, biodegradability enhancement is more effective than particle size reduction in optimizing the co-digestion process with WAS in practice.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Anaerobic co-digestion
Particulate organics
Rate-limiting step
Biodegradability enhancement
Size distribution

1. Introduction
The treatment and disposal of municipal biowaste (MBW, e.g.,
restaurant food waste, fruit and vegetable residues) and waste
activated sludge (WAS) from municipal wastewater treatment
plants is a major problem in almost all cities in China; the total
quantity of these 3 kinds of MBW is more than 50 million tons
annually. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is the top choice for treatment
of MBW in consideration of stabilization of wastes and energy recovery [12]. AD is a biological process that converts organic matter
into a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane gases by a complex
community of microorganisms. It has been used in the treatment of
many kinds of organic wastes, such as kitchen waste, grass residues,
and animals manure. Taking the variety of the substrates and the
versatility of the facilities into account, MBW co-digestion with

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gaoxb@craes.org.cn (X. Gao).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2016.01.019
0960-1481/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

municipal sewage sludge is always used; this process has the

advantage of providing a potential increased output of biogas, and
stability of the anaerobic system [11].
The characteristics of raw biowaste materials used in this study
are shown in Table 1. Characteristics measured were the solid
fraction, organic composition, and elemental composition. Suspended solids (SS), which include both organic and inorganic particulate solids, showed a high particulate solid content in raw
materials. Volatile solids (VS), standing for organic matter, accounts
for 65%e90% of the total solids (TS). VS can be divided into volatile
dissolved solids (VDS) and volatile suspended solids (VSS). VSS/VS,
representing the particulate organic solid ratio in the organic
fraction, accounts for 46.2%, 58.3% and 96.6% of the restaurant food
waste (RFW), fruit and vegetable residues (FVR), and WAS,
respectively, indicating that particulate organic compounds play an
important role in the AD process. This is in agreement with other
studies that have demonstrated that the concentration of particulate organic compounds is the essential rate-limiting factor of AD
process [18,20]. The concepts of disintegration, solubilisation, and

X. Gao et al. / Renewable Energy 96 (2016) 1086e1092

1087

Table 1
Characteristics of raw biowaste materials.

Water content (%)

TS (g/L)
VS (g/L)
SS (g/L)
VSS (g/L)
VS/TS (%)
VSS/VS (%)
Crude fat (%TS)
Crude protein (%TS)
Crude ber (%TS)
C (%)
H (%)
N (%)
C/N

Restaurant food waste

Fruit and vegetable residues

Waste activated sludge

83.4
166.3 26.7
149.0 24.3
72.8 14.3
68.8 12.0
89.6
46.2
21.8
16.8
5.58
48.2
7.3
2.8
17.4

93.8
62.2
50.8
35.7
29.6
81.6
58.3
2.89
13.2
15.31
42.0
6.1
2.4
17.4

84.5
154.9 18.1
101.9 10.8
151.7 21.4
98.5 12.8
65.8
96.6
10.25
34.3
7.09
37.2
5.5
5.9
6.3

enzymatic hydrolysis are usually expressed by the general kinetic

term of particulate organic compounds hydrolysis in most of the
literature [2]. Particulate carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, as well
as particulate and soluble inert material, are the products of the
disintegration of composite materials. Monosaccharides, amino
acids, long chain fatty acids, and glycerol are the products of the
enzymatic degradation of particulate carbohydrates, proteins and
lipids, respectively, and microorganisms benet from the soluble
products and produce the corresponding hydrolytic enzymes [17].
Theoretically, the disintegration of composites to particulate constituents and the subsequent enzymatic hydrolysis to their soluble
monomers are both extracellular processes. Degradation of soluble
materials is mediated by organisms intracellularly, resulting in
biomass growth and subsequent decay [3]. It is unclear which
process (disintegration, solubilisation, or enzymatic hydrolysis) is
the primary rate-limiting step in AD process. In this study, the
removal rate of particulate organic materials of different particle
sizes is used to elucidate the rate-limiting step of particulate organics hydrolysis.
Generally, pre-treatment methods are introduced to help reduce
the effect of the rate-limiting factor. The main effects that pretreatment has on different substrates, as reported in the literature, can be identied as (i) particle size reduction, (ii) solubilisation, (iii) biodegradability enhancement, (iv) formation of
refractory compounds, and (v) loss of organic material [5]. Many
studies explore the correlation between particle size reduction and
solubilisation, and the enhancement of biodegradability. The reported correlations in the literature are ambiguous; in some cases
the biodegradability enhancement of the substrate is strongly
correlated to the solubilisation or particle size reduction [19], in
others the correlation is lacking or even negative [6,16] Izumi et al.
[9]. reported a methane yield increase of 28% when the mean
particulate size decreased from 0.89 to 0.72 mm, but when particle
size was <0.51 mm, the methane yield decreased as a result of high
VFA accumulation in the anaerobic digester Silvestre et al. [15].
found that reducing the particle size of the organic fraction of
municipal solid waste from 20 to 8 mm did not signicantly
improve the gas yield or the production rate in a co-digestion
system with sewage sludge.
Therefore, the value of the option to include pre-treatment in
the design of a project becomes difcult to assess because of
uncertainty about the effect of particle size reduction on the
biodegradation process. In this study, the correlation between
biodegradability enhancement and particle size reduction for
biowaste is addressed, and a potential option for biodegradability enhancement of WAS is proposed for anaerobic codigestion.

16.0
11.2
14.2
11.2

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Materials
RFW is produced in higher quantities than FVR and WAS in
China. It has been reported that a WAS content of 10%e30% can
improve AD performance and stability [4,7]. In the present study,
the model substrate (Substrate A) used was composed of 50% RFW,
25% FVR, and 25% WAS. RFW was collected from a student canteen
(seating capacity of over 1000) at Tsinghua University, Beijing. FVR
was obtained from a wholesale market, and WAS was obtained
from a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Beijing (Qinghe
WWTP; Northern Beijing; capacity: 400,000 m3 d
1). The inert
materials in RFW and FVR were manually separated (e.g., plastic,
bone, wood, and others). RFW and FVR were crushed initially by a
RFW pulverizer to less than 3 mm together at a ratio of 2:1. The
pulverized material was then mixed with WAS at a ratio of 3:1. The
mixed feedstock was kept at 4  C before use. Two more substrates
with no WAS (Substrate B) and 60% WAS (Substrate C) were used to
address the effects of feedstock. Table 2 presents the general
chemical properties of the substrates in terms of solid fraction and
organic composition.
2.2. AD systems
The research on the effects of the organic load rate (OLR) on AD
performance was carried out in a continuous stirred-tank reactor
with an actual volume of 2 m3 and an effective volume of 1.6 m3.
The research on substrate B and substrate C was carried out in two
continuous stirred-tank reactors with an actual volume of 220 L
and an effective volume of 170 L. Both the 2-m3 and 220-L reactors
were operated under mesophilic conditions at 35  C 2  C, heated
by a water jacket. The reactors were mixed using mechanical stirrers (100 rpm) with an agitation time of 10 min per 2 h, and were
fed once a day using a screw pump. The inoculums of the 2-m3
reactor were collected from another municipal wastewater treatment plant (Xiaohongmen WWTP, located in southern Beijing),
where the excess sewage sludge was treated by AD.
The TS, SS, VS, and VSS contents were used to characterize the
solid composition of the biowaste. TS represents all the components of the biowaste except for water TS can be divided into dissolved solid (DS) and SS according to its existing phase, or into VS
and xed solid (FS) according to its composition. The quantitative
relationships are shown below:

TS SS DS VS FS

(1)

The TS, SS, VS, and VSS concentrations of the inoculums were

1088

X. Gao et al. / Renewable Energy 96 (2016) 1086e1092

Table 2
Characteristics of substrates.

Ratio of restaurant food waste/%

Ratio of fruit and vegetable residues/%
Ratio of waste activated sludge/%
Water content/%
TS/g L
1
VS/g L
1
SS/g L
1
VSS/g L
1
Lipids/%TS
Protein/%TS
Crude ber/%TS

Substrate A

Substrate B

Substrate C

50.0
25.0
25.0
85.8
142.1 9.3
117.3 7.8
91.7 15.0
74.0 12.2
16.5
20.8
6.4

66.7
33.3
0
87.8
122.6 13.7
108.6 13.8
68.6 17.1
66.3 16.6
24.4
19.8
9.7

26.7
13.3
60.0
86.3
137.2 10.0
104.4 9.8
112.0 12.8
81.5 12.8
11.5
30.3
11.1

27.0 g L
1, 25.0 g L
1, 10.4 g L
1, and 9.7 g L
1, respectively. The
inoculums of the 220-L reactors were collected from the 2-m3
reactor under a constant OLR of 6.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1. The TS, SS, VS,
VSS concentrations of 61.9 g L
1, 35.3 g L
1, 48.3 g L
1, and
28.9 g L
1, respectively.

membranes, and TS and VS of the samples were analyzed according

to Standard Analytic Methods [1]. Each sample was tested in
triplicate.

2.3. Particle size distribution analysis

We conducted analysis of TS, VS, SS, and VSS based on Standard

Analytic Methods promulgated by the National Environmental
Protection Agency of China (1989). We conducted the measurement of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) using gas chromatography
(SHIMADZU GC-2010) with a ame ionization detector and GDX102 column (inlet, 200  C; oven, 170  C; and detector, 220  C).
The various VFAs included acetic, propionic, iso-butyric, butyric,
iso-valeric, and valeric acids. The biogas volume was measured
with a wet-test gas ow meter, and the composition of the biogas
was monitored by gas chromatography (SHIMADZU GC-2010) with
a thermal conductivity detector and RT-Qplot column (column,
30 m  0.53 mm; ame ionization detector, 200  C; oven, 50  C;
inlet, 200  C; carrier gas, helium 10 ml/min; split ratio, 35:1, and
injection volume, 100 ml).

A wet-sieving method was used to analyze the particle size of

raw materials and the digestates [10]. Fig. 1 illustrates the wet
sieving process. Six screens with mesh numbers of 20 (Screen #1),
40 (Screen #2), 80 (Screen #3), 120 (Screen #4), 160 (Screen #5),
and 200 (Screen #6) and corresponding mesh sizes of 840 mm,
420 mm, 178 mm, 124 mm, 96 mm, and 74 mm were stacked, with the
mesh number increasing from top to bottom. We diluted approximately 10 g VS of each sample in 150 mL of deionized water and
poured it onto Screen #1, then added 50 mL of deionized water to
wash the particles on the screen. We took down Screen #1 and
transferred the particle into Beaker #1 in 50 mL of deionized water.
We then added 50 mL of deionized water to wash the particles on
Screen 2# and transferred the particles from Screen #2 into Beaker
#2. We repeated the above steps until the particles on Screens #3,
#4, #5 and #6 were transferred to corresponding beakers. Finally
we diluted the liquid that passed through the screens to 1000 mL
with deionized water and transferred it to Beaker #7. The samples
in Beaker #1e#7 were ltered through 0.45-mm quantitative lter

2.4. Chemical analysis

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Anaerobic digestion reactor performance
The 2-m3 pilot scale anaerobic digester has been operating for

Fig. 1. Overview of the wet sieving process of particulate organics in substrate and digestate samples.

X. Gao et al. / Renewable Energy 96 (2016) 1086e1092

more than 500 days, and details on its performance have been
provided in our previous paper [12]. The reactor was operated using progressive OLRs from 1.2 to 8.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1. The particle size
distribution of the digestate was analyzed at OLRs of 1.2, 6.0, and
8.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1 with corresponding hydraulic retention times
(HRTs) of 100 d, 20 d and 15 d.
The 220-L digesters were inoculated with the seed sludge obtained from the 2-m3 digester under a constant OLR of
6.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1. The OLR of the 220-L digesters was controlled at
6.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1, while being fed by different substrates. All the
digesters have operating steadily for 60 days, which is more than 3
times the HRT.
Table 3 summarizes operational parameters obtained under the
conditions of the different phases, including OLR, HRT, volumetric
biogas production, biogas yield, VS removal rate, and detailed information on the efuents.
All of the reactors performed stably during the operation period
except in Phase V, and the pH value, alkalinity, and other indexes
were all in the normal range. For Phase V, the reactor experienced
rapid acidication (VFA concentration reached as high as
22,083 mg L
1) in the initial 2e5 days of the operation period.
Substrate C had a WAS composition of 60%, which led to poor
uidity and deteriorated performance of the reactor. During the
subsequent 6e60 days of the operation period of Phase V, the
mixing time was extended to 30 min per 2 h and the reactor
returned to normal.
Previous studies have summarized the performance of the
reactor, and the results have shown that the model substrate (MBW
and WAS) used in the current research is appropriate for AD, and
the AD system demonstrated an efcient biogas production capability [12,13]. In this research, we focused on the degradation of the
particulate organics, and the inuence of OLRs and the substrate
composition on the degradation characteristics were discussed
further.

1089

Fig. 2. Particle size distribution in substrate A and digestate under different OLRs.

Table 4
The inuence of OLR on the removal rate of particles of different sizes.
Partical size/mm

Removal rate/%

>840
420e840
178e420
124e178
96e124
74e96
0.45e74
<0.45

OLR 1.2

OLR 6.0

OLR 8.0

92.1
93.0
91.0
80.8
81.7
e
32.7
82.6

89.3
90.6
90.0
85.1
87.1
e
18.7
75.8

95.1
93.0
84.9
80.6
78.1
e
12.1
73.7

content is 3.9e4.1 g kg
1, corresponding to 8.6e10.8% of total

digestate VS. The results demonstrate that the large particulate
organics can be removed effectively during AD.
The particulate organics 0.45e74 mm in size exhibited much
lower removal rates (12.1e32.7%), and the removal rate decreased
as OLR increased. AD is a microorganism process, and the microorganisms proliferate while they convert organic compounds into
biogas. Research shows that the proliferation rate of microorganism
is 0.05e0.15 g VSS g BOD
1 during AD, which means that
0.05e0.15 g VS is produced in the form of microorganism per 1 g
BOD consumed. Generally, the coccus have a particle size of about

3.2. Inuence of OLR on the degradation of particulate organics

Fig. 2 shows the particulate organic compounds distribution of
raw substrate A and the digestate under different OLRs; and Table 4
summarizes the removal rates of different sized particulate organics under OLRs of 1.2, 6.0, and 8.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1.
The results demonstrate that the organics with particle sizes
>74 mm have a high removal rates (more than 80%). OLR and HRT
did not obviously inuence the removal rate of particles >74 mm.
For all three operational periods, the residual particulate organic
Table 3
Operational parameters and detailed information of reactor efuent.

Substrate
Organic loading rate/kgVS (m3 d)
1
Hydraulic retention time/d
Volumetric biogas productiona/m3 (m3 d)
1
Biogas yieldb/m3 kgVS
1
Total solid/g kg
1
Volatile solid/g kg
1
Suspended solid/g kg
1
Volatile suspended solid/g kg
1
C/N
Volatile solid removal ratec/%
pH
NH4 -N/mg kg
1
Volatile fatty acid/mg L
1
Alkalinity/gCaCO3 L
1
a
b
c

II

III

IV

A
1.2
100
0.89 0.13
0.74 0.07
52.6 0.3
35.3 1.3
35.8 0.3
28.7 1.4
6.21
69.9
7.53 0.05
1774 322
203 34
13.2 0.6

A
6.0
20
4.25 0.38
0.72 0.06
67.0 1.8
41.2 1.8
53.8 2.2
34.1 1.9
6.15
64.9
7.46 0.03
2259 226
500 17
11.9 0.6

A
8.0
15
5.28 0.52
0.62 0.08
68.9 4.4
44.9 3.8
56.3 4.0
36.4 3.1
6.18
61.7
7.45 0.09
2011 233
570 120
13.0 0.4

B
6.0
17
4.44 0.67
0.72 0.10
43.2
25.0
29.6
19.1
6.16
81.1
7.49 0.05
2637 35
730 271
13.7 0.6

C
6.0
21
2.87 0.46
0.48 0.03
83.2
50.9
68.8
40.2
6.07
48.9
5.27-7.51
1740 148
665-22083
11.8 1.2

Volumetric biogas production Daily biogas production/Effective volume of anaerobic reactor.

Biogas yield Daily biogas production/Daily VS feeding into the reactor.
VS removal rate (%) (VS of substrate
VS of reactor)/VS of substrate  100.

1090

X. Gao et al. / Renewable Energy 96 (2016) 1086e1092

1 mm and bacillus are 2e3 mm in length and 0.3e0.5 mm in depth. It

can therefore be concluded that the proliferated microorganisms
accumulated in particles 0.45e74 mm in size. This can explain the
low removal rate of particulate organics in this size range. As OLR
increased, the residual organic contents increased, which also indicates more rapid proliferation of the microorganisms.
The results demonstrate that the biodegradation rate of large
particles did not change as the HRT changed, indicated that the
disintegration of large particles to small particles was not the ratelimiting step in AD. The small particles (<0.45 mm) exhibited
removal rates of 73.7e82.6%, and the removal rate decreased as OLR
increased. With an increase in OLR, the soluble organics of particles
<0.45 mm accumulated in the digestate. These ndings demonstrate that the enzymatic hydrolysis of soluble high-molecularweight organics is the rate-limiting step in the hydrolysis process
of MBW.
3.3. Inuence of substrate composition on the degradation of
particulate organics
In our previous research, the feedstock characteristics appeared
to signicantly inuence the VS removal rate during AD. To elucidate the correlation between the characterization of feedstock and
the degradation behavior of particulate organics, substrate
composition was changed, and the removal rate of particulate organics of different particle size was measured. The WAS content of
substrates A, B, and C was 25%, 0%, and 60% respectively. Fig. 3
shows the particle distribution in feedstock and digestate for the
different substrates under an OLR of 6.0 kgVS (m3 d)
1. For substrate B (only kitchen waste and fruit-vegetable residues), the
contents of particulate organics (>840 mm) and soluble organics
(<0.45 mm) were relatively high. As the WAS content increased, the
content of particulate organics 0.45e74 mm in size increased
signicantly, which resulted from the organics distribution of WAS.
Table 5 summarizes the removal rates of different sized particulate
organics in the three different substrates. The table demonstrates
that for the large particulate organics (>420 mm), the removal rate
was more than 90% and there was no signicant difference
following the addition of WAS, while the removal rates of particulate organics 124e178 mm, 74e124 mm, and <0.45 mm in size
decreased following the addition of WAS. Due to the relatively low
content of particulate organics 0.45e74 mm in size in fruitvegetable residues, and microorganism proliferation in the particle size range of 0.45e74 mm, the removal rate of particulate organics 0.45e74 mm in size was negative for substrate B. When WAS
added to the substrate, the content of particulate organics
0.45e74 mm in size increased, leading to a rate of removal of particulates 0.45e74 mm in size that was greater than the rate of
microorganism proliferation, resulting in a positive net removal
rate. The residual content of particulate organics 0.45e74 mm in size
increased for substrate A and C as well, because the size of nonbiodegradable organics in WAS was also in the size range of
0.45e74 mm.
We can conclude that there is no direct correlation between
degradation rate and particle size for RFW, FVR, and WAS. Large
particulate organics can be efciently removed in AD, and their
removal is not the rate-limiting step. For WAS, the low VS removal
rate mainly resulted from the high content of non-biodegradable
small particulate organics (0.45e74 mm) rather than the conversion of large particulate organics.
3.4. Consideration of applicative pre-treatment for MBW anaerobic
digestion
In this study, substrates of common types of MBW in China (e.g.

Fig. 3. Inuence of substrate composition on particle size distribution in substrate and

digestate samples when feeding (a) Substrate B, (b) Substrate A, and (c) Substrate C.

X. Gao et al. / Renewable Energy 96 (2016) 1086e1092

Table 5
Inuence of substrate on the removal rate of particles of different sizes.
Particle size/mm

removal rates for different size particulate organics were all higher
for substrate D, especially for particulate organics <420 mm.

WAS content/%
0

25

60

60 (hydrothermal pre-treated)

94.3
92.4
80.0
68.2
65.8
e
20.0
58.2

96.0
95.0
92.9
87.0
89.9
e
31.8
79.9

Removal rate/%
>840
420e840
178e420
'124e178
96e124
74e96
0.45e74
<0.45

1091

96.0
95.4
94.0
92.6
95.4
e

55.7
88.1

89.3
90.6
90.0
85.1
87.1
e
18.7
75.8

RFW, FVW, and WAS) were used to elucidate the removal mechanism of particulate organics during AD. We found that almost all
the large particulate organics obtained from a general mechanical
crushing process (normally <3 mm) can be easily disintegrated into
small particles and then into soluble organics. Comparing different
substrates, the removal of non-biodegradable particulate organics
and soluble high-molecular-weight organics were then bottlenecked during AD. Thus, pre-treatment should be designed to
emphasize biodegradability enhancement, rather than particle size
reduction. The biodegradability of RFW and FVR is suitable for
direct digestion, while that of WAS needs improvement by pretreatment. Hydrothermal pre-treatment was a widely used
method to improve the biodegradability of WAS [8,14]. In this study,
substrate D with 60% WAS after hydrothermal pre-treatment
(temperature 175  C and retention time 60 min) was used to
improve the performance of the AD system [13]. Under the conditions used for substrate D, biochemical methane potentials of raw
and treated WAS were 157 and 212 mL CH4/g-VS, respectively, and
increased by 35%, indicating that a large number of nonbiodegradable organic compounds were converted to biodegradable organic compounds after hydrothermal pre-treatment. Fig. 4
shows the particle size distribution in substrate D (with 60% WAS
after hydrothermal pre-treatment). The particle size clearly
decreased following hydrothermal pre-treatment. The proportions
of particulate organics >74 mm, 0.45e74 mm, and <0.45 mm in size
were 11.4%, 85.0%, and 3.6%, respectively in raw WAS, while these
proportions were 2.0%, 59.1% and 38.9%, respectively following
hydrothermal pre-treatment. Compared with substrate C, the

Fig. 4. Inuence of substrate composition on particle size distribution in substrate and

digestate samples when feeding substrate D (with 60% hydrothermal pre-treated
WAS).

4. Conclusions
Particle size signicantly inuenced the biodegradation rate
during the co-digestion process of MBW and WAS. However, OLR
did not signicantly affect the biodegradation rate for organic
compounds >74 mm. As OLR and HRT decreased, the quantity of
organic compounds <74 mm increased gradually, as a result of
microorganism multiplication. Thus, we can conclude that the
disintegration of large particles to small particles was not the ratelimiting step under the current crushing conditions, which reduces
particle size to <3 mm, while the enzymatic hydrolysis of soluble
high-molecular-weight compounds to monomolecular compounds
was identied to be the rate-limiting step in the overall methane
conversion process.
Anaerobic co-digestion of WAS with RFW, FVR, and other biowaste is a promising technology in China. It offers many advantages, including a C/N ratio balance, ammonia inhibition
elimination, and investment savings. However, optimization of
WAS pre-treatment is still being studied. From this study, it is clear
that biodegradability enhancement is more effective than particle
size reduction to optimize AD performance and biogas recovery of
MBW with WAS in practice.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51208486).
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