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Sequential Anaerobic/Aerobic Digestion for Enhanced Carbon/Nitrogen Removal and Cake Odor Reduction
Author(s) -
Ahmad Muneer,
Denee Marco Abel,
Jiang Hao,
Eskicioglu Cigdem,
Kadota Paul,
Gregonia Theresa
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
water environment research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1554-7531
pISSN - 1061-4303
DOI - 10.2175/106143016x14504669768291
Subject(s) - anaerobic digestion , effluent , aerobic digestion , digestion (alchemy) , pulp and paper industry , wastewater , sewage treatment , chemistry , anaerobic exercise , fecal coliform , waste management , odor , nutrient , environmental science , environmental engineering , methane , biology , water quality , chromatography , ecology , physiology , organic chemistry , engineering
Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been proven to be an effective process for the treatment of wastewater sludge. However, it produces high levels of ammonia in the digester effluent, which may jeopardize meeting stringent nutrient discharge limits. In this study, the effect of a sequential anaerobic/aerobic (AN/AERO) digestion and a single‐stage conventional AN digestion (as control) was investigated on mixed (primary + secondary) sludge generated by the Annacis Island wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) (BC, Canada). An overall sludge retention time (SRT) of 22.5 days under three different scenarios was chosen based on the current operational SRT of the digesters at the Annacis Island WWTP. The steady state results have shown that sequential AN/AERO digestion configurations achieved up to 11% higher volatile solids (VS) removal and 72% lower ammonia generation over single‐stage conventional AN digestion. Furthermore, sequential AN/AERO system also showed enhanced dewaterability, improved fecal coliform destruction and reduced digested cake odors over control digesters.