Integrated production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) with municipal wastewater and sludge treatment at pilot scale.

A pilot-scale process was operated over 22 months at the Brussels North Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in order to evaluate polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production integration with services of municipal wastewater and sludge management. Activated sludge was produced with PHA accumulation potential (PAP) by applying feast-famine selection while treating the readily biodegradable COD from influent wastewater (average removals of 70% COD, 60% CODsol, 24% nitrogen, and 46% phosphorus). The biomass PAP was evaluated to be in excess of 0.4gPHA/gVSS. Batch fermentation of full-scale WWTP sludge at selected temperatures (35, 42 and 55 °C) produced centrate (6-9.4 gCODVFA/L) of consistent VFA composition, with optimal fermentation performance at 42 °C. Centrate was used to accumulate PHA up to 0.39 gPHA/gVSS. The centrate nutrients are a challenge to the accumulation process but producing a biomass with 0.5 gPHA/gVSS is considered to be realistically achievable within the typically available carbon flows at municipal waste management facilities.

Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production from sludge and municipal wastewater treatment.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are biodegradable polyesters with comparable properties to some petroleum-based polyolefins. PHA production can be achieved in open, mixed microbial cultures and thereby coupled to wastewater and solid residual treatment. In this context, waste organic matter is utilised as a carbon source in activated sludge biological treatment for biopolymer synthesis. Within the EU project Routes, the feasibility of PHA production has been evaluated in processes for sludge treatment and volatile fatty acid (VFA) production and municipal wastewater treatment. This PHA production process is being investigated in four units: (i) wastewater treatment with enrichment and production of a functional biomass sustaining PHA storage capacity, (ii) acidogenic fermentation of sludge for VFA production, (iii) PHA accumulation from VFA-rich streams, and (iv) PHA recovery and characterisation. Laboratory- and pilot-scale studies demonstrated the feasibility of municipal wastewater and solid waste treatment alongside production of PHA-rich biomass. The PHA storage capacity of biomass selected under feast-famine with municipal wastewater has been increased up to 34% (g PHA g VSS(-1)) in batch accumulations with acetate during 20 h. VFAs obtained from waste activated sludge fermentation were found to be a suitable feedstock for PHA production.

Treatment of packaging board whitewater in anaerobic/aerobic biokidney.

Whitewater from production of packaging board was treated in a combined anaerobic/aerobic biokidney, both in laboratory scale and pilot plant experiments. Both the laboratory experiments and the pilot plant trial demonstrate that a combined anaerobic/aerobic process is suitable for treating whitewater from a packaging mill. It is also possible to operate the process at the prevailing whitewater temperature. In the laboratory under mesophilic conditions the maximal organic load was 12 kg COD/m3*d on the anaerobic reactor and 6.7 kg COD/m3*d on the aerobic reactor. This gave a hydraulic retention time, HRT, in the anaerobic reactor of 10 hours and 2 hours in the aerobic reactor. The reduction of COD was between 85 and 90% after the first stage and the total reduction was between 88 to 93%. Under thermophilic conditions in the laboratory the organic load was slightly lower than 9.6 COD/m3*d and between 10 and 16 COD/m3*d, respectively. The HRT was 16.5 and 3.4 hours and the removal was around 75% after the anaerobic reactor and 87% after the total process. For the pilot plant experiment at a mill the HRT in the anaerobic step varied between 3 and 17 hours and the corresponding organic load between 4 and 44 kg COD/m3*d. The HRT in the aerobic step varied between 1 and 6 hours and the organic load between 1.5 and 26 kg COD/m3*d. The removal of soluble organic matter was 78% in the anaerobic step and 86% after the combined treatment at the lowest loading level. The removal efficiency at the highest loading level was about 65% in the anaerobic step and 77% after the aerobic step. In the pilot plant trial the removal efficiency was not markedly affected by the variations in whitewater composition that were caused by change of production. The variations, however, made the manual control of the nutrient dosage inadequate and resulted in large variations in effluent nutrient concentration. This demonstrates the need for an automatic nutrient dosage system. The first step towards such a system was to evaluate two different on-line instruments. Both had severe stability problems, which made them unsuitable as parts in a system for control of the nutrient dosage.

Biological treatment of whitewater in a laboratory process in order to determine kinetic parameters for model development.

Implementation of an in-mill biological treatment plant is one solution to the problems associated with closure of whitewater systems. It is, however, important to operate the treatment with low concentration of nutrients in the effluent. The effect on the COD reduction from decreased additions of NH4-N and PO4-P were investigated in three parallel aerobic suspended carrier reactors during treatment at 46 to 48 degrees C of whitewater from a recycled paper mill producing liner and fluting. In the reference reactor, a COD reduction of 89% was achieved and 45.6 mg NH4-N/(g COD reduced) and 11.6 mg PO4-P/(g COD reduced) was consumed at an organic load around 20 kg COD/(m3 x d). Reduced additions of NH4-N decreased the COD reduction. Addition of 56% of the consumption of NH4-N in the reference reactor resulted in a COD reduction of 80%. The response from decreased addition of PO4-P was different compared to NH4-N but it could not be determined if this is due to unsuitable experimental design or a different reaction mechanism. Reducing the addition of PO4-P to 26% of the consumption of PO4-P in the reference reactor, decreased the COD reduction to 83%. The main conclusion from the experiment is: biological treatment has the potential of treating whitewater from recycled paper mills with low effluent nutrient concentrations.