An optimised control system to steer the transition from anaerobic mono- to co-digestion in full-scale plants

Abstract

The proposed control system allowed a full-scale sludge anaerobic digester to be safely steered from mono- to co-digestion and to raise methane production by 3-fold, increasing the self-produced electricity from 25% to 75% of the total demand of the WWTP.

Acidogenesis is a key step in the anaerobic biotransformation of organic micropollutants

“…The metabolic routes during hydrolysis and acidogenesis depend on the substrate composition. Carbohydrates are among the main constituents of various agroindustrial waste, municipal sewage and sewage sludge that are treated anaerobically [42,43].…”

Modelling of the anaerobic semi-continuous co-digestion of sewage sludge and wine distillery wastewater

“…However, sewage sludge (SS) organic load values undergo high variations and are often not sufficient for an economically effective operation 1 . Given that many of the anaerobic digesters installed in WWTP are oversized, the scientific community is paying close attention to simultaneous anaerobic co-digestion (ACoD) of SS and other types of waste aimed to promote the biodegradability of the feedstock and hence to enhance biogas production [6][7] . The main advantages of ACoD include: shared treatment facilities, reduced investment and operating costs, buffering of the variations in the composition of the waste over time and the diluting of toxic compounds and cytotoxic inhibitors.…”