Anaerobic Digestion for Environmental Processes

Term project by Edmond White, May 1997

Introduction
As I looked through the different web pages for Biochemical Engineering I realized that for
the amount of material covered in the course it often becomes difficult to get very specific on
one type of process. I decided to cover some of the specifics for Anaerobic Digestion used to
stabilize waste water treatment sludge.

The treatment of wastewater and sewage creates a problem; that of the disposal of the by-
products of this process. For an engineer, this problem may create the single most complex
and costly process of the whole wastewater treatment process. Municipal wastewater
treatment plants generate sludges as a by-product of the physical, chemical and biological
processes used in the treatment of sewage. Generally, this sludge must be subject to some
form of treatment in order to alter its character. It may then be disposed of without creating
health problems or further hindrance. This treatment has many objectives. First, to reduce
the volume of excess material by eliminating the liquid portion of the sludge. The second
goal is to decompose the highly putrescible organic matter into relatively stable or inert
organic and inorganic compounds; thus allowing water to separate more easily. By using
anaerobic digestion in the treatment of wastewater sludge, the overall cost of sewage
treatment is reduced and it also furnishes a considerable power supply. Although many
sludge stabilization methods exist, anaerobic digestion is unique for it has the ability to
produce a net energy gain in the form of methane gas, it optimizes cost effectiveness and
minimizes the amount of final sludge disposal, thus decreasing the hazards of wastewater
and sewage treatment by-products.

Background
The first step in the wastewater treatment process is pretreatment. The purpose of this step
is to remove large solids and grits through screening. The screenings by-products are
disposed of separately from the other wastewater sludges. The next step in the wastewater
treatment process is primary treatment, which involves the use of clarifiers and
sedimentation tanks to settle particulates in the wastewater. Primary treatment removes
approximately 50 to 65 percent of the suspended solids and 30 to 40 percent of the
biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) from the wastewater. The sludge removed from this
process contains mostly organic matter that is highly putrescible.

Following primary treatment, the wastewater is subject to secondary treatment. In nearly all
municipal wastewater treatment facilities aerobic microorganisms are used to biologically
remove the remaining BOD and suspended solids. This effluent then passes through a
secondary clarifier, producing a sludge consisting of nearly 90 percent organic matter.
Overall, this sludge is composed of approximately 2 to 4 percent solids and if not treated
correctly, it becomes highly odiferous.

In most cases, the sludges from primary and secondary treatment are combined and
undergo another form of treatment before their disposal. First, the sludge is thickened, by
gravity or floatation, removing as much water as possible. Thickening may reduce the
amount of sludge to as little as half of the original volume. The liquid effluent from this
process is recycled back to the beginning of the treatment process. Once this has been
accomplished, the sludge is subject to some form of stabilization. This process converts the
organic solids to more inert forms so that they may be disposed of without causing health
problems or further difficulties.
The Anaerobic Digestion Process
An anaerobic treatment system is a complex three-step process that produces methane gas
(in addition to other products) from the biological digestion of sewage waste. The first stage
is the hydrolysis of lipids, cellulose, and protein. Extracellular enzymes produced by the
inhabiting bacteria breakdown these macromolecules into smaller and more digestible forms.
Next, these molecules are decomposed into fatty acids such as propionic, acetic, and butyric
acid. This decomposition is performed by several facultative and anaerobic bacteria such as
Clostridium, Bifidobacterium, Desulphovibrio, Actinomyces, and Staphylococcus. Finally,
methanogenic bacteria such as Methanobacterium, Methanobacillus, Methanococcus, and
Methanosarcina digest these fatty acids, resulting in the formation of methane gas (Metcalf &
Eddy, 457).

The production of methane gas is the slowest and most sensitive step of the anaerobic
digestion process because it requires specific environmental conditions for the growth of
methanogenic bacteria. These bacteria can only digest effectively at a pH of 6.6-7.6, and if
the growth of the acid forming bacteria is excessive, there will be an overproduction of acid
leading to a decrease in the pH causing many problems. (Metcalf & Eddy, 457). Also, the
methanogenic bacteria have a limited temperature range for optimum performance, usually
in the mesophilic range (90 - 105 °F). Often this requires pre-heating of the waste before
entering the digester (Owen, 203).

Anaerobic Digesters

Utilization of Methane
Once the methane gas has been collected from the reactor, it must be cleaned and
separated from other biogas constituents such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and
excess moisture. Hydrogen sulfide is corrosive to metal piping and may damage gas
engines and therefore must be removed by scrubbing the gas with an iron oxide sponge or a
gas scrubber. Metal ions added to the sludge before anaerobic treatment can also reduce
the hydrogen sulfide content, forming insoluble salts which are removed during digestion
(ASD, 31).

Although most carbon dioxide is stripped during the removal of hydrogen sulfide, additional
carbon dioxide may be removed to reduce the total volume and increase the gas value.
Removal of carbon dioxide is expensive and is only economically feasible when the gas is to
be sold commercially. The most common method of carbon dioxide removal is absorption
through a chemical or aqueous solution, as in a scrubber (Owen, 262). After cleaning and
purifying the methane gas, it can either be stored for later use or used immediately. It can
either be burned by direct firing or within a gas engine (internal combustion). Digester gas
can be used as fuel for hot water boilers, water pump engines, blowers, and electric
generators. It can also be used to fire incinerators or burned to heat the influent sludge
during pretreatment. The benefits of this process are optimized when the gas is used on site;
most commonly to heat the digester influent. Any excess gas that can not be used by the
treatment plan can be sold commercially (ASD, 31).

Anaerobic Digesters
Presently there are three categories of anaerobic treatment systems. The first category is
the conventional anaerobic digester, which includes two basic designs and another that
combines the two. The standard rate digester is the most basic treatment system.
It mixes the waste is solely by the movement of gas up through the solid matter and into the
top of the tank; there is no external mixing. This process is highly inefficient, for it utilizes
only 50 percent of the total waste volume, and requires a very long solids retention time
(SRT), usually greater than 30 days (Owen, 212).

To improve upon the standard rate digester, engineers created the high-rate digester which
incorporates external mixing to the process. This additional mixing improved the process
tremendously by reducing the required SRT to between 6 and 30 days while increasing the
organic loading rate approximately 5 times. The two-stage digester is a combination of the
high and standard rate digesters, placing the high-rate digester before the standard rate
digester. This arrangement is done to "thicken" the waste in the second step and aid in the
collection of digester gas. Nevertheless, this system frequently fails to completely separate
the waste, making this arrangement inefficient and impractical (Metcalf & Eddy, 612).

Anaerobic contact processes were developed to overcome the problems associated with
conventional reactors. This second category of anaerobic digesters is similar to the aerobic
activated sludge process, because it includes a set of reactors in series, often with recycle.
There are two system configurations for anaerobic contact processes. A schematic of these
processes is in Figure 2. The upflow anaerobic process is a large reactor which allows the
waste to flow up from the bottom and separates the waste into 3 zones. At the very top is the
biogas zone where the gas is collected. Bacteria digest waste in the lowest portion of the
upflow reactor; the bioreactor zone. In between these two stages is the clarifier zone where
the which exports the stabilized waste (Owen, 220).

The anaerobic activated sludge process consists of a bioreactor and clarifier in series. When
influent waste is pumped into the bioreactor, bacteria are allowed to digest the waste, and
biogas is created. The gas is then collected at the top of the bioreactor in a variety of ways.
The effluent waste, often called mixed liquor, is sent to a clarifier where the larger solids are
allowed to settle out of solution. A portion of these sediments are returned to the bioreactor
in order to maintain an adequate level of biomass in the reactor. The liquid effluent from the
clarifier is then ready for disposal.

With these processes it is often necessary to allow large clusters of bacterial growth to
develop so that a sufficient level of bacteria remains in the system. The bacterial clusters
either settle in the clarifier of the activated sludge process and are recycled, or they settle to
the bottom of the upflow clarifier reactor. This buildup of biomass can be achieved by
maintaining a large SRT in the system. Due to the recycling of the anaerobic activated
sludge process and the settling nature of the upflow bioreactor, both these systems support
a long SRT while simultaneously providing a low hydraulic resonance time (HRT). Thus, they
are able to handle a high waste flowrate and a high organic loading rate while operating at
65- 95% efficiency (depending upon the type of waste). Although anaerobic contact
processes require energy for pretreatment of the sludge, their ability to utilize almost the total
waste volume in creating methane makes this process self sufficient (Owen, 222).

The last classification of anaerobic reactors are the submerged media anaerobic reactors
(SMARs). These reactors are similar to the upflow bioreactor yet they contain an additional
internal media which supports bacterial growth. The Static-Bed SMAR uses either rocks or
synthetic media as the support material. Because the media provides a stationary adherence
place for the bacteria, the bacteria are able to grow and fill the cracks between the support
media, thus creating the ability to maintain a large stock of biomass. As waste influent flows
up through the system it is digested by the bacteria which cling to the support media (Owen,
224).
The Fluidized-Bed SMAR is an improved version of the S-B SMAR. It uses smaller particles
(.5 to 1 mm in diameter) as it's support material while separating a portion of the effluent for
recycle. The packed particle volume is expanded by 5-20% during typical operation. This
expansion allows for bacterial growth between the particles and also provides a large
surface area on which the biomass can grow. The recycling of the effluent evenly distributes
the solids in the bed and returns any live bacteria that separated from the media and entered
the clarifier zone (Owen, 225).

Both SMAR systems are able to resist system stress failure due to changing conditions and
other factors. They can also support short HRT's while maintaining large SRT's. Although
operating the SMAR reactors at higher temperatures will improve efficiency, speed and
increase the amount of sludge utilized by the bacteria, it is not necessary to pre-heat the
influent waste. In both systems the gas and liquid effluent are separated at the top of the
reactor (Owen, 223).

Anaerobic digestion
Raw sludge from the primary or secondary clarification steps is very wet and becomes putrid
on holding. It would be expensive to haul away with so much water present. Anaerobic
digestion results in loss of roughly half of the solids, and digested sludge are denser than
raw sludge. Little mixing and no aeration are required during digestion. While this suggests
that an anaerobic step for waste treatment should be inexpensive, very large vessels are
required because digestion is slow. Methane evolved during digestion is collected and
burned for heating; the digester must either be a pressure vessel or have a floating lid that
holds gas at a pressure sufficient to compensate for the weight of the lid.

Holding sludge under anaerobic conditions results in a succession of microbial growth and
death cycles where the decay of cells provides nutrients for the next generation.

Sketch of floating roof sludge digester

The sketch on the right shows more gas. Note that the green color in the seal that
represents water is depressed on the higher-pressure side. Note also that the digester is
stratified into the layers labeled on the left sketch. Adding or removing sludge through the
pipe labeled sludge I/O provides a small amount of mixing.
Associated Problems
As with all processes, there are several problems associated with anaerobic digestion.
These problems must be understood and kept under control to ensure maximum efficiency
and safety. From the onset of the process, several factors which could severely affect the
outcome of digestion are encountered. As mentioned before, the methanogenic bacteria are
very fastidious and can only operate at a particular temperature and pH. In order to avoid
extremely long HRT's it is often necessary to preheat the influent, using additional energy. It
is also important to maintain alkalinity in the reactor to prevent the pH from dropping far
below 6.6.
Within the reactor system, foaming and the formation of scum layers can become a slight
problem, especially during the initial start-up. Foaming occurs in the reactor when there is an
excess amount of organics, or when there is an imbalance between the different types of
bacteria. An imbalance in the reactor occurs if there is too much grease in the system,
extreme temperature fluctuations, high alkalinity, low total solids, or excessive or inadequate
mixing. This imbalance results in foaming of the reactor and production of a scum layer. To
control the production of scum and foam one must remove grease from the sludge influent
before entering the system, ensure there is a continuous mixing speed, and temporarily
reduce sludge feed to control temperature fluctuations (ASD, 28).
Explosions occur when there is the proper mixture of air, heat, and gas. Because all these
factors are present in the treatment facility, safety precautions are necessary. Since local
heat sources can not be eliminated, mixing the digester gas with the surrounding air must be
avoided. It is essential that the digester has a tight lid which does not allow any air to leak in
or gas to leak out. When handling digester gas, it also must be contained at the proper
pressure (ASD, 56).

Conclusions
Thus for municipal wastewater treatment plants it is most cost effective and environmentally
sound to use anaerobic digestion in the stabilization of sewage sludge. This is most
efficiently done using either an anaerobic activated sludge system or a submerged media
anaerobic reactor. Not only does this greatly reduce the final volume of waste to be
disposed, it also creates enough energy, in the form of methane gas, to fuel the whole plant.

Pretreatment
Sludge Pretreatment

Anaerobic digestion has proved to be the most beneficial stabilization technique for its
volume reducing capabilities and its ability to create energy in the form of methane gas. This
process becomes most efficient when the sludge is pretreated before it enters the digester.
In a study done by Dynatech Scientific, Inc. for the New York State Energy Research and
Development Authority, they cite exposing the sludge to high temperatures for very short
retention times through the use of a steam injection rapid thermal reactor. The purpose of
this is to solubilize the particulate volatile organics present in the sludge thereby increasing
its biodegradability. They concluded that anaerobic digestion of untreated sludge results in
the destruction of approximately 40 percent of the volatile organics to methane and carbon
dioxide gas. In contrast, pretreated sludge achieves almost 75 percent destruction of volatile
organics, resulting in a greater production of methane gas. Their study also concluded that
the pretreatment process was both technically feasible and economically competitive to
other present pretreatment processes.