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Volatile fatty acid production from hydrolyzed sewage sludge: effect of hydraulic retention time and insight into thermophilic microbial community

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Abstract

The disposal of sewage sludge potentially reaches 50–60% of the total operation cost of a wastewater treatment plant. Given its high content of organic material, adopting effective technologies for sewage sludge treatment minimizes its environmental impact and the parallel conversion of the organics into recovered bio-products. Hence, the such stream can be viewed as a renewable carbon source to produce high-value products such as volatile fatty acids (VFA). Short-time (8 h) alkaline (pH 9–11) and thermal (70–85 °C) hydrolysis were applied to enhance the acidogenic fermentability of thickened sewage sludge. Mild thermal hydrolysis (70 °C) was chosen as the best performing method to increase the soluble chemical oxygen demand (CODSOL) and boost the VFA production in the following dark fermentation process, designed at three different hydraulic retention times (4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 days). The highest acidification yield (0.30 g CODVFA/g VS) and CODVFA/CODSOL ratio (0.73) were obtained at 6.0 days as hydraulic retention time. Microbial community analysis performed at the end of semi-continuous tests showed the occurrence of several fermentative bacteria (i.e., Coprothermobacteraceae, Planococcaceae, Thermoanaerobacteraceae) responsible for the fermentation of complex organic matters mainly into acetic, propionic, and butyric acids, which dominated the VFA spectrum.

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Abbreviations

CSTR :

Continuous stirred tank reactor

DF :

Dark fermentation

FID :

Flame ionization detector

GC :

Gas chromatograph

HRT :

Hydraulic retention time

OLR :

Organic loading rate

SRT :

Sludge retention time

COD SOL :

Soluble chemical oxygen demand

VFA :

Volatile fatty acids

TKN :

Total Kjeldahl nitrogen

TS :

Total solids

VS :

Volatile solids

WWTP :

Wastewater treatment plant

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Acknowledgements

The hospitality of Alto Trevigiano Servizi (ATS) S.r.l. is gratefully acknowledged.

Funding

This work was partially supported by DAIS—Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, within the IRIDE program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30172, Mestre-Venice, Italy

    Marco Gottardo & Francesco Valentino

  2. Water Research Institute, National Research Council of Italy, CNR-IRSA, Area Della Ricerca RM1, Via Salaria km 29.300, Rome, 00015, Monterotondo, Italy

    Simona Crognale, Barbara Tonanzi & Simona Rossetti

  3. Department of Chemistry, La Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Ludovica D’Annibale

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry, University of Barcelona, C/Marti i Franquès 1, Barcelona, Spain

    Joan Dosta

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  1. Marco Gottardo
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Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, resources, supervision: Marco Gottardo; methodology, formal analysis and investigation, writing—original draft preparation: Simona Crognale; formal analysis and investigation: Barbara Tonanzi; supervision, resources: Simona Rossetti; formal analysis and investigation: Ludovica D’Annibale; conceptualization: Joan Dosta; funding acquisition, writing—original draft preparation: Francesco Valentino.

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Correspondence to Marco Gottardo.

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Gottardo, M., Crognale, S., Tonanzi, B. et al. Volatile fatty acid production from hydrolyzed sewage sludge: effect of hydraulic retention time and insight into thermophilic microbial community. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-03659-8

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