Pre-treatment Technology of Wastewater Sludge for Enhanced Biogas Production in Anaerobic Digestion

Economic feasibility is one of the most important factors in energy production from regenerative biomass. From the aspect, biogas from anaerobic digestion of wastewater sludge is regarded as the most economical because of its cheap substrate and additional income from the disposal of waste sludge. Sludge hydrolysis has been regarded as the rate limiting step of anaerobic digestion and many sludge pre-treatment technologies have been developed to accelerate anaerobic sludge digestion for enhanced biogas production. Various sludge pre-treatment technologies including biological, thermo hydrolysis, ultrasonic, and mechanical methods have been applied to full-scale systems. Sludge pre-treatment increased the efficiency of anaerobic digestion by enhancing hydrolysis, reducing residual soilds, and increasing biogas production. This paper introduces the characteristics of various sludge pre-treatment technologies and the energy balance and economic feasibility of each technology were compared to prepare a guideline for the selection of feasible pre-treatment technology. It was estimated that thermophilic digestion and thermal hydrolysis were most economical technology followed by Cell rupture TM , OpenCEL TM , MicroSludge TM , and ultrasound. The cost for waste sludge disposal shares the biggest portion in the economic analysis, therefore, water content of the waste sludge was the most important factor to be controlled.