Abstract
Anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS) was one of the directions of sludge treatment, but how to effectively improve the production of methane as a resource product of anaerobic digestion of sludge still needs further research. The study examined how the combination of potassium ferrate (PF) and thermal hydrolysis (TH) pretreatment affected methane production from sludge. The results demonstrated a positive synergistic effect on methane production with PF-TH pretreatment. Specifically, by employing a 0.05 g/g TSS (total suspended solids) PF in conjunction with TH at 80 °C for 30 min, the methane yield increased from 170.66 ± 0.92 to 232.73 ± 2.21 mL/g VSS (volatile suspended solids). The co-pretreatment of PF and TH has been substantiated by mechanism studies to effectively enhance the disintegration and biodegradability of sludge. Additionally, the variation of microbial community revealed an enrichment of active microorganisms associated with anaerobic digestion after treated with PF + TH, resulting in a total abundance increase from 11.87 to 20.45% in the PF + TH group.
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52076152) and Major Project of Guangxi Science and Technology (No. AA23023016).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Bing Guo, Jiachen Zeng, Yuchi Hao, and Jiawei Hu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Bing Guo, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Guo, B., Zeng, J., Hao, Y. et al. Enhanced methane production from waste activated sludge by potassium ferrate combined with thermal hydrolysis pretreatment. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-34281-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-34281-y