Effect on sludge disintegration by EDTA-enhanced thermal-alkaline treatment.

Sludge disintegration is an effective pretreatment to enhance the biodegradability of sludge. At present, the thermal-alkaline is one of the most commonly used methods, but it has a massive consumption of energy and chemical reagents. EDTA-enhanced thermal-alkaline treatment was used to strengthen the dewatered sludge disintegration at mid-low temperature in this study. Results showed that the dissolving-out quantity of soluble chemical oxygen demand and the volatile solid (VS) in residual sludge in the EDTA-added group were 14.7% higher and 7% lower than those in control system without EDTA, respectively, indicating that EDTA addition improved the performance of sludge disintegration. The addition of EDTA loosened the floc structure and enhanced the hydrolyzability of dissolved organic matters (DOM) with a narrower distribution of the relative molecular weight. The membrane damage of microbial cells in EDTA-added group reached 73.3% after 120 min, which was much higher than that in the control group (31.9%). EDTA contains a large number of hydrogen bond acceptors and could form hydrogen bonds with alcohols and phenols in solubilization products and DOM. It was speculated that the mechanism of EDTA-enhanced sludge disintegration was related to the formation of hydrogen bonds between EDTA and organic matter inside and outside the cell. PRACTITIONER POINTS: The addition of EDTA facilitated the thermal-alkali cracking of dewatered sludge. EDTA increased the particle size of sludge and enhanced the hydrolysis of DOM. The strengthening effect mainly occurred at the beginning of TB-EPS dissolving slowly. Hydrogen bond played important roles in the enhanced disintegration of sludge by EDTA.

Effects of sludge lysate for Cr(VI) bioreduction and analysis of bioaugmentation mechanism of sludge humic acid.

This study evaluated the effects of sludge lysate (SL) on the anaerobic bioreduction of Cr(VI) and the role of sludge humic acid (SHA) during this process. The results showed that supplement of SL significantly enhanced the efficiency of Cr(VI) bioreduction by 29.61%, in 12 h compared with that of the control without SL. Moreover, SHA exhibited promoting effects on bioreduction of Cr(VI), and the promotion increased with increasing SHA concentrations from 100 to 300 mg/L. In the presence of 300 mg/L SHA, Cr(VI) (98.21 mg/L) was completely reduced after 24 h with a removal rate increased by 34.3% compared with that of the control without SHA. Further investigation on the bioaugmentation mechanism of SHA by studying the nature of SHA and the reaction mechanism between SHA and Cr(VI) revealed that SHA exhibited a strong adsorption ability, which could adsorb and combine with Cr(VI). The adsorption capacity of Cr(VI) by SHA was calculated as 34.4 mg/g with 0.2 g of SHA and 10 mg/L of Cr(VI). It could also act as redox mediators to accelerate the electron transfer between microorganisms and Cr(VI) to promote reduction of Cr(VI). Furthermore, the effects of SL on the microbial community compositions of the anaerobic Cr(VI) bioreduction system were studied. Brachymonas was the primary bacteria at the genus level. The abundance of electroactive bacteria, such as Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, and Arcobacter, increased in the SL-amended system. These findings expand the versatility of SL and justify wider use of residual activated sludge, which might contribute to the treatment of heavy metal-contaminated wastewater.

CO2 Fixation, Lipid Production, and Power Generation by a Novel Air-Lift-Type Microbial Carbon Capture Cell System.

An air-lift-type microbial carbon capture cell (ALMCC) was constructed for the first time by using an air-lift-type photobioreactor as the cathode chamber. The performance of ALMCC in fixing high concentration of CO2, producing energy (power and biodiesel), and removing COD together with nutrients was investigated and compared with the traditional microbial carbon capture cell (MCC) and air-lift-type photobioreactor (ALP). The ALMCC system produced a maximum power density of 972.5 mW·m(-3) and removed 86.69% of COD, 70.52% of ammonium nitrogen, and 69.24% of phosphorus, which indicate that ALMCC performed better than MCC in terms of power generation and wastewater treatment efficiency. Besides, ALMCC demonstrated 9.98- and 1.88-fold increases over ALP and MCC in the CO2 fixation rate, respectively. Similarly, the ALMCC significantly presented a higher lipid productivity compared to those control reactors. More importantly, the preliminary analysis of energy balance suggested that the net energy of the ALMCC system was significantly superior to other systems and could theoretically produce enough energy to cover its consumption. In this work, the established ALMCC system simultaneously achieved the high level of CO2 fixation, energy recycle, and municipal wastewater treatment effectively and efficiently.