Upgrading VFAs bioproduction from waste activated sludge via co-fermentation with soy sauce residue

Highlights

SSR addition upgraded VFAs production from WAS.

Structure modification by pretreatments led to performance distinctions.

Distinctions in microbial community was observed by pretreatments selection.

Up to 0.49‒0.65 billion €/year of market value potential was preliminary estimated.

Abstract

Conditioning of extra carbon sources has been widely reported to facilitate fermentation of waste activated sludge (WAS). Soy sauce residue (SSR) was a relatively untapped carbon source for sludge conditioning. This batch study aimed to evaluate the possible implementation of SSR for volatile fatty acids (VFAs) production from WAS. To upgrade the bioavailability of feedstock, three typical pretreatment methods were conducted, i.e., ammonium hydroxide (AH), sulfuric acids (SA) and thermal assisted alkaline (TA). AH pretreated test (AH-PT) outperformed due to a relatively strong structure decomposition of cellulosic materials as revealed by infrared spectroscopic analysis and crystal index. As a result, performed a high hydrolysis rate of 4449 mg COD/d, 1.12-1.23-fold higher than that in TA and SA pretreated tests (TA-PT and SA-PT), and 7.8-fold higher than that in the Control test. Meanwhile, a volatile fatty acids (VFAs) contribution of 401.2 mg COD/g SSR∙L and a maximum acidification rate of 3.59 d^-1 was recorded, with a high sum proportion of mall molecular acetic and propionic 82.2%, 11% ‒70% increase over the other three tests. Besides, speciation process characterized with functional genus differentiation was identified by microbial diversity and distribution investigation and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). Finally, a potential market value of 0.49‒0.65 Billion €/year was preliminary estimated, showing promise of resource recovery from both WAS and SSR instead of extensive disposal.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Waste activated sludge (WAS) / Soy sauce residue (SSR) / Sludge conditioning / Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) / Microbial diversity

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51608345, 51708386, 51378330 and 21501129), by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. 2015M570241, 2016M591416 and 2017T100170), by the Open Project of Key Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, CAS (No. kf2016004), by the State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse Foundation, (No. PCRRF17021), by the Key Research and Development (R&D) Project of Shanxi Province (No. 201603D321012) and the Scientific and Technological Project of Shanxi Province (Nos. 2015021119, 201701D221230 and 201601D021130).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-019-1086-7 and is accessible for authorized users.

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