Effect of microplastic on anaerobic digestion of wasted activated sludge

The Effect of Wastewater Treatment Plants on Retainment of Plastic Microparticles to Enhance Water Quality—A Review

“…The organic molecules can stem from plastic additives to MPs such as added plasticizers, antioxidants or UV absorbents or they themselves could have been adsorbed to the MPs at some point in their history and are now released. Also, other research groups have commented on this inhibition of methanogenic activity by MPs (and NPs) in lab scale anaerobic digestion processes of wastewater or simulated wastewater and in lab scale UASB processes [179] [180] [181] [182] [183]. PE-MPs [180], PEST-MPs [179], PET-MPs [182], PS-MPs [183], and PVC-MPs [181] all showed this inhibition.…”

Fate of disposable face masks in high-solids anaerobic digestion: Experimental observations and review of potential environmental implications

“…Previous reports suggested that degradation of disposable face masks can release microplastic fibers [ 21 , 22 ]. As identified as an emerging contaminant in sewage sludge, research on the fate and degradation of microplastics in anaerobic digestion has already received considerable attention [ 23 , 33 , 34 ]. These studies reported the inhibitory effects of microplastics on methanogenesis kinetics.…”

“…A few studies already identified disposable face masks as emerging sources of microplastics contamination of our ecosystem [ [20] , [21] , [22] ]. There have been shreds of evidence that microplastics compounds can adversely affect methanogenic communities in anaerobic digesters [ [23] , [24] , [25] ]. However, based on the authors’ knowledge, the potential impact of face masks in OFMSW on HSAD performance and operation is still unknown.…”

An evaluation of microplastics fate in the wastewater treatment plants: frequency and removal of microplastics by microfiltration membrane

“…Since these materials are heavier than film and foam, they tend to settle or stick to the sludge matrix. Consequently, the presence of these materials impairs the subsequent operational units such as anaerobic digestion, when the digesters are fed with MPs-concentrated sludge (Li et al 2020;Aminzadeh et al 2021). Therefore, an appropriate post-treatment should also be adopted to eliminate the MPs from sewage sludge (Noguchi et al 2019).…”