Effect of aerobic pretreatment of waste on the rate of anaerobic treatment processes

Abstract

The efficiency of waste degradation can be expressed by the rate of waste decomposition in individual phases. This article presents the durations of degradation phases of pretreated and untreated waste stabilized in anaerobic laboratory reactors. In this investigation, the quantities of organic and nitrogen contaminants emitted from the waste during the study are presented. The study confirmed the beneficial effects of aerobic pretreatment of waste before landfilling on reducing the duration of hydrolysis and acid phases, and speeding up the start of the stable methane phase. In the pretreated waste reactor, the stable methane phase began about 19 weeks earlier than in the untreated waste. The total amounts of contaminants removed from the aerobic pretreatment waste were lower than from untreated waste, with values of COD, TOC, BOD 5 , and VFA corresponding to 21, 18, 6, and 23 %, respectively, and values of TKN and NH 4 of 7 and 50 %, respectively.

Emissions from mechanically biologically treated waste landfills at field scale

“…This causes the reduction of BOD concentrations by two orders of magnitude, with final values of 200 mg/L in the monitoring period. The average concentrations of COD observed in this study are consistent with those achieved by Suchowska-Kisielewicz et al (2013), who reported values of 23,500 mg/L during the unstable methanogenic phase. Taking these authors' results into account, the stable phase (in which measured COD concentrations were 1,300 mg/L) has not yet been reached in this research.…”

The effectiveness of biodrying waste treatment in full scale reactor

“…The differences in the biological methods of composting, stabilization and biodrying are not only in the operational variables but also in the final destination of the outputs. The final product of the stabilization can be treated as a stable and non-biologically active material that can be landfilled with minimum environmental impact [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. In the biodrying reactor only a part of the easy biodegradable fraction is being decomposed in order to save the calorific value as the production of input to the refuse derived fuel RDF is the main target.…”