Improving Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge by Hydrogen Addition: Analysis of Microbial Populations and Process Performance

Elia Judith Martínez, Ana Sotres, Cristián B. Arenas, Daniel Blanco, Olegario Martínez and Xiomar Gómez
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Elia Judith Martínez: Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), University of Leon, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009 Leon, Spain
Ana Sotres: Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), University of Leon, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009 Leon, Spain
Cristián B. Arenas: Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), University of Leon, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009 Leon, Spain
Daniel Blanco: Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), University of Leon, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009 Leon, Spain
Olegario Martínez: Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), University of Leon, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009 Leon, Spain
Xiomar Gómez: Chemical and Environmental Bioprocess Engineering Group, Natural Resources Institute (IRENA), University of Leon, Av. de Portugal 41, 24009 Leon, Spain

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: The effect of hydrogen pulse addition on digestion performance of sewage sludge was evaluated as a means for studying the increase in efficiency of methane production. Microbial communities were also evaluated to get an insight of the changes caused by the operational modifications of the digester. An energy evaluation of this alternative was performed considering the theoretical process of coupling bioelectrochemical systems (BES) for the treatment of wastewater along with hydrogen production and the subsequent anaerobic digestion. The addition of hydrogen to sewage sludge digestion resulted in an increase of 12% in biogas production over the control (1353 mL CH 4 d −1 at an injection flow rate of 1938 mL H 2 d −1 ). The liquid phase of the sludge reactor and the H 2 supplemented one did not show significant differences, thus indicating that the application of hydrogen as the co-substrate was not detrimental. High-throughput sequencing analysis showed slight changes in archaeal relative abundance after hydrogen addition, whereas eubacterial community structure and composition revealed noteworthy shifts. The mass and energy balance indicated that the amount of hydrogen obtained from a hypothetical BES can be assimilated in the sludge digester, improving biogas production, but this configuration was not capable of covering all energy needs under the proposed scenario.

Keywords: sludge digestion; hydrogen addition; microbial community analysis; energy performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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