Ningben Jina,
Yawen Shaoa,
Jun Zhub,
Zongqi Shoua,
Haiping Yuana and
Nanwen Zhu*a
aSchool of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China. E-mail: nwzhu@sjtu.edu.cn; Fax: +86 021 54743170; Tel: +86 021 54743170
bDepartment of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville 72701, USA
First published on 11th May 2015
Ferric nitrate has been proved to be effective on removing inhibition of excessive volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and promote stabilization of sludge in autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion (ATAD) recently. The dosing time of Fe(NO3)3 had a significant impact on performance of Fe(NO3)3 on disinhibition of excessive VFAs in the ATAD process. The timings of Fe(NO3)3 additions were determined as 3rd day, 6th day, 9th day and 12th day to remove available acetic acid. The lowest concentrations of total VFAs (TVFA) and VFAs but highest microbial activity were found in the digester with Fe(NO3)3 dosed on the 6th day (T6). The sludge in T6 achieved stabilization 6 days earlier than that in digester without chemical addition with VS removal of 38.50% on the 15th day and VS removal of 42.74% on the 21st day. The lower TVFA concentration favored the lower NH4+–N and TN contents and improved the microbial activity which contributed to the lower concentrations of SCOD and TP in supernatant.
Nevertheless, the concerns about issues of poor dewaterability, foaming, disadvantageously excessive concentrations of ammonia and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) generating in the ATAD process for sewage sludge still existed.5–7 Especially, the superfluous VFAs concentration in ATAD system causing by limited aeration and retention time as well as high waste load have aroused more and more attentions.8–10 Although the VFAs are most important intermediary substances for microorganisms11 and drawn great interests in applications of producing biodegradable plastics, bioenergy and biological nutrient removal processes,12 the product inhibition resulted from the accumulation of VFAs should be taken into consideration in acidification process.13 Inhibition of a combination of VFAs containing 2–6 carbon atoms each with threshold of VFA concentration of 17 ± 1 g CODVFA L−1 and acetate being approximately 50% as inhibitory as the other organic acids were shown in fermentation of pre-treated waste activated sludge.13 The overmuch generation of VFAs also makes the hydrogen production process unfavorable by limiting the substrate degradation, which is much important in acidogenic process.14
Oxygen is always insufficient in the ATAD system, especially in the initial stage with abundant organic matters, which was due to the limited aeration rate for self-heating through restricting the loss of heat in water evaporation and air effluent.15 Hence, when the oxygen, as the terminal electron acceptor, along the respiratory chain is limited under micro-aerobic condition, the metabolic pathway of substrate to acetate is strengthened in order to maintain the balance between nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and NAD+ as well as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production maximization.16 However, the conversion route of propionic acid to acetic acid would be hindered once the acetate accumulated over high because that the propionic acid is more advantageous to the oxidation of NADH-H than the butyrate acid.17,18 As the concentration of total VFAs (TVFA) arrives 5000 mg CODVFA L−1 with propionic acid content of over 1000 mg CODVFA L−1, the Gram-positive bacteria is suppressed distinctly, which is dominant bacteria in ATAD system.19,20 Therefore, focus should be taken on the establishment of methodology to decrease VFAs levels in ATAD system. Usage of ferric nitrate was confirmed to be a feasible method to remove the inhibition of excessive VFAs and enhance the efficiency of sludge stabilization in one-stage ATAD process lately.7 Optimal dosage of ferric nitrate on disinhibition of superfluous VFAs in one-stage ATAD system was also definite.21 However, the proper dosing time of ferric nitrate is not determined until now.
The purpose of this study was to ascertain the optimal timing of ferric nitrate that added in the batch experiments due to the uncertain point of time when VFAs over-produced in the ATAD process. The effects of ferric nitrate on removing VFAs and microbial activity as well as sludge stabilization at different dosing time were investigated in this work.
000 m3 wastewater treatment daily. The raw sludge collected was preserved at 4 ± 1 °C to maintain freshness prior to use after screened out dross of granule diameter >0.5 mm and centrifugation at 3000g for 3 min to obtain a total solid (TS) concentration between 5% and 6%.The initial properties of sludge were shown in Table 1.
| Parameter | pH | TS (g L−1) | VS (g L−1) | SCOD (mg L−1) | TN (mg L−1) | NH4+–N (mg L−1) | TP (mg L−1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a SCOD, soluble chemical oxidation demand; TN, total nitrogen in supernatant; TP, total phosphate in supernatant. | |||||||
| Value | 6.57 ± 0.05 | 55.1 ± 0.3 | 40.0 ± 0.2 | 3400 ± 30 | 313 ± 15 | 105 ± 8 | 204 ± 11 |
The whole digestion process took 21 days and samples were taken at particular intervals for analysis. As the VFAs concentration achieved a peak level on the 9th day in one-stage ATAD process,7 chemicals were added on the 3rd, 6th, 9th,12th day of ATAD process with designed dosages 6 hours before sampling, respectively, for the sake of adequate reactions between chemical reagents and sludge. The dosage of Fe(NO3)3·9H2O was 3.16 g per L sludge, which was calculated at the ideal molar ratio of 1
:
3 in order to form Fe(CH3COO)3 to reduce acetic acid of 1500 mg L−1 with the decreased amount of sludge by sampling counted.7 Defined amounts of sodium hydroxide were added into digesters in order to eliminate the influence of chemicals additions on pH. The dosing time of the different treatments were 3rd day (T9), 6th (T6), 9th (T9) and 12th (T12), respectively, and the one without Fe(NO3)3 dosed was designated as the control (T0).
000g for 5 min before filtration through a 0.45 μm mixed cellulose ester membrane. The filtrate was analyzed for determination of soluble chemical oxidation demand (SCOD), NH4+–N, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphate (TP) according to the Standard Methods.22 The filtrate was mingled with 3% H3PO4 to keep pH at approximately 4.0 before analysis of volatile fatty acids (VFAs). The VFAs concentrations were measured by a Shimadzu GC-2010 gas chromatograph with a flame ionization detector and DB-FFAP column (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 mm) in accordance with the method by Chen et al.23 The content of VFAs was expressed in mg L−1 as COD.
The measurement of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) content in sludge was based on the following reaction (1):
| ATP + D-luciferin + O2 → oxyluciferin + PPi + AMP + CO2 + light | (1) |
Sludge sample was extracted to centrifuge at 12
000g for 15 min. The residual sludge was washed with PBS (0.1 M phosphate buffer solution, pH 6.9) three times before mixing with ultrapure water using ultrasonic processing in room temperature for 5 min to be uniform. The sample was preserved at 4 °C for 12 h before going reaction with luciferase (Bac Titer-Glo microbial cell viability assay, Promega Corp.), which was measured as a Relative Luminescence Unit (RLU) in a Spectra Max L microplate luminometer (Varioskan Flash, Thermo Corp.). The pH-optimum of reaction is 7.75 and the resulting green light has an emission maximum at 562 nm.24,25
All of the indicators were determined in triplicate and the standard deviations were obtained. Statistical analysis was carried out using the software SPSS version 19.0 for Windows (SPSS, IBM). The correlations were considered statistically significant at a 95% confidence interval (p < 0.05; Tukey's test).
The variations of individual VFA in T0 to T12 were shown in Fig. 2B to F, respectively. Fig. 2B showed that the higher two kinds of VFAs were acetic acid and iso-valeric acid, which was in accord with the results of Xu et al.25 The content of iso-valeric acid was higher than that of propionic acid in thermophilic condition, which coincided with the report by Hao and Wang,28 indicating that protein was the main substrate except carbohydrate during these digestion processes.23 The acetic acid content in T0 was as high as 5280 mg L−1 on the 12th day and ended with 4000 mg L−1 on the 21st day. However, the variations of individual VFAs in other four digesters were similar to the trends of TVFA, respectively. As shown in Fig. 2D, the acetic acid content in T6 decreased after Fe(NO3)3 dosed on the 6th day and got to 1830 mg L−1 on the 9th day, which was 3300 mg L−1 lower than that in T0, considering that the possible mechanism of reactions (2)–(5) demonstrated in previous research by Jin et al.7
| Fe3+ + 3CH3COO− ⇌ Fe(CH3COO)3 | (2) |
| Fe(CH3COO)3 + 2H2O ⇌ Fe(OH)2(CH3COO) + 2CH3COOH | (3) |
| 2Fe(OH)3 + 2HNO3 + 2HCOOH + 2CH3COOH → Fe2(HCOO)2(CH3COO)2(NO3)2 + 6H2O | (4) |
| Fe2(HCOO)2(CH3COO)2(NO3)2 + H2O → Fe2(HCOO)2(CH3COO)2(OH) (NO3) + HNO3 | (5) |
Then the level of acetic acid in T6 increased to the top of 3510 mg L−1 on the 12th day in consideration of the continually degradation of matrix.29 There were 1770 mg L−1 lower comparing the maximum level of acetic acid in T6 with that in T0 on the 12th day and 2790 mg L−1 at the end of digestion. The acetic acid concentration in T3 was showed in Fig. 2C. The decline of acetic acid value was one day delayed after chemical added on the 3rd day, which should attribute to the violent releasing and metabolism of macromolecules in the initial stage of ATAD process.27 The decrease caused by chemical addition ended on the 6th day with 1270 mg L−1, which was 2240 mg L−1 lesser than that in T0. Similar to that happened in T6, the acetic acid level in T3 rose again to the peak on the 9th day with 4350 mg L−1, which was only 780 mg L−1 lower than that in T0. Nevertheless, the time of the maximum value of acetic acid obtained in T3 was advanced, which should be due to the early over consumption of organic matters in view of the disinhibition of excessive VFAs. The end of acetic acid level in T3 was 1850 mg L−1, which was 2150 mg L−1 lesser than that in T0. The acetic acid levels in T9 and T12 also declined after chemical additions. The variations of acetic acid contents in T9 and T12 were between those in T0 and T6. In a word, the chemical of Fe(NO3)3 had played an important role in removing available acetic acid, which could decreased the TVFA content, especially for T6 digester with optimal timing of chemical addition.
![]() | ||
| Fig. 3 Variations of (A) ATP concentrations in sludge and (B) VS removals in supernatant at different dosages in one-stage ATAD system. | ||
The ATAD process has a quick sludge reduction rate under thermophilic conditions. As shown in Fig. 3B, the VS removal of T0 could reach 38.28% (>38%) on the 21st day, achieving the EPA Class A requirements for sewage sludge31 and obtained 39.29% on the 24th day. In the first two days, there were no obvious differences of the sludge digestion efficiencies among the five treatments (P < 0.05). However, the VS removal efficiency of T3 became faster after Fe(NO3)3 dosed on the 3rd day. The same conditions also happen to the rest three digesters with chemical additions. The VS removal of T6 had exceeded that of T3 after digestion of 9 days and held the lead among all five digesters until the end of digestion. The VS removal of T6 achieved 38.50% on the 15th day with stabilization 6 days earlier than that of T0 and obtained 42.74% after 21 days digestion. The VS removal of T6 still kept a high rate after digestion of 21 days and reached 46.75% on the 24th day with 7.46% more than that of T0. The sludge in T3 obtained stabilization on the 18th day with 39.06% VS removal and ended with 45.55% VS removal on the 24th day. As for T9 and T12, the sludge in T9 and T12 achieved stabilization on the 18th day and the 21st day with 38.47% VS removal and 39.60% VS removal, respectively. Thus, it could be concluded that the sludge in T6 could obtain both fastest and highest stabilization requirement of all through the ATAD process, which was associated with activity of microbe significantly.7
![]() | ||
| Fig. 4 Variations of (A) NH4+–N; (B) pH and (C) TN concentrations in supernatant at different dosages in the one-stage ATAD system. | ||
The variations of pH were shown in Fig. 4B. The pH values in all digesters except for the digester T3 decreased from 1st day to 4th day, which should ascribed to the acidification of matrix.18 The changes of pH values in digesters with chemical additions comparing with that in T0 were opposite to those of NH4+–N contents. As seen in Fig. 4A, the increase rates of NH4+–N levels in digesters with Fe(NO3)3 dosed were lower comparing with that in T0 when chemicals added. Nevertheless, the increase rates of pH values in digesters with Fe(NO3)3 dosed were higher comparing with that in T0 when chemicals added. These results should be due to reason that pH was influenced by releasing of ammonia nitrogen as well as acid–base Balance.18 The pH values of all digesters were between 6.0 and 9.5. The maximum value of pH was achieved in T6 with 9.18 on the 21st day and the pH level in T0 was 7.93 at the end of digestion.
The variations of TN levels were similar to those of NH4+–N levels under thermophilic condition in consideration that nitrification and denitrification were inhibited.18 As seen in Fig. 4C, the increase rates of TN concentrations in digesters with chemical additions declined comparing with that in T0 when Fe(NO3)3 were dosed. There were no obvious differences of the TN concentrations among the five treatments in first two days (P < 0.05). The TN content in T0 increased sharply to 2973 mg L−1 on the 12th day and then decreased slowly to 2698 mg L−1 at the end of digestion. The TN content in T6 obtained minimum value of all with 2443 mg L−1 on the 9th day, 3 days earlier than that in T0, which should be due to the degradation of protein advanced by enhanced microbial metabolism. Then it declined to 1752 mg L−1 after digestion of 21 days with 946 mg L−1 lower than that in T0. The TN levels in other three digesters changed between those in T0 and T6.
703 mg L−1 on the 6th day. The SCOD levels in other three digesters with chemical additions did not increase again after Fe(NO3)3 dosed. Especially, the SCOD content in T6 had achieved the maximum value of 26
437 mg L−1 on the 5th day, which was four days advanced comparing with that in T0 with 27
914 mg L−1 on the 9th day. The SCOD level in T6 ended with 16
335 mg L−1 while that in T0 was 22
295 mg L−1 at the end of digestion process. The SCOD concentrations in other three digesters changed between those in T0 and T6 after 9th day. In a word, the dosing time of 6th day was the most reasonable choice for the removal of SCOD and improvement of performance of one-stage ATAD system.
![]() | ||
| Fig. 5 Variations of SCOD concentrations in supernatant at different dosages in one-stage ATAD system. | ||
![]() | ||
| Fig. 6 Variations of TP concentrations in supernatant at different dosages in one-stage ATAD system. | ||
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015 |