Improving bio-conditioning dewatering performance of food waste anaerobic digestate at low ambient temperatures by heating treatment.

Food waste anaerobic digestate (FWAD) containing high concentrations of contaminants must be purified or recycled. Bio-conditioning dewatering followed by activated sludge process (BDAS) has emerged as a promising technology for treating FWAD. However, the bio-conditioning dewatering as a pivotal step of BDAS is often negatively affected by low ambient temperatures often occurred in winter. This study investigated the role of heating FWAD in improving the bio-conditioning dewatering performance of FWAD. Batch experiments demonstrated that the bio-conditioning dewatering efficiency increased with temperature rise. Notably, due to the low energy consumption, 50°C was considered to be the most appropriate heating treatment temperature, realizing a drastic reduction of specific resistance to filtration (SRF) of bio-conditioned FWAD from initial 1.24 × 1012 m/kg in the control at a ambient temperature of 10°C to 5.42 × 1011 m/kg and a saving of 25% in bio-conditioning reagents cost. The results of the pilot-scale and large-scale experiments revealed that heating treatment made the bio-conditioning dewatering more stable regardless of the fluctuation of ambient temperature in practical engineering. The decrease in the viscosity of bio-conditioned FWAD and the enhancement in microbial fermentation liquor flocculation capacity through heating treatment played pivotal roles in improving the bio-conditioning dewatering performance of FWAD. This work provides a cost-effective strategy to achieve efficient bio-conditioning dewatering at a relatively low ambient temperature, which was helpful in the engineering application of the novel BDAS process in wastewater treatment.