Modeling wastewater sludge hydrolysis aided by high temporal resolution measurements through microbial electrochemistry

CBET -1335884塞萨尔岛亚利桑那州州立大学 这个项目将解决我们需要更好地了解厌氧微生物的固体水解，重点是城市污水污泥。 固体水解是废水污泥处理中的一个关键的限速步骤;同时它对许多生物能源过程也很重要，例如从纤维素生产生物燃料。 鉴于废水污泥的复杂性，固体水解包括许多难以解决的单独过程。 缺乏全面和高分辨率的数据，从生物实验，导致现有的污泥水解模型的验证不足。 由阳极呼吸细菌（ARB）供电的微生物电化学电池（MXC）阳极的使用提供了一种新的替代方案来探测微生物水解动力学事件，其具有比基于甲烷产生的当前方法高得多的精度和更高的时间分辨率。 MXC允许我们通过测量其电流以非常高的时间分辨率（1分钟）测量ARB的呼吸率。同时监测固体和可溶性微生物水解组分沿着当前的生产将能够准确测量瞬时水解速率，并更深入地阐明潜在的机制。 高分辨率MXC数据，沿着分析测量，将为描述固体有机物的三种主要成分（碳水化合物、蛋白质和脂质）水解的滞后时间提供强有力的基础。 通过收集的数据，该项目旨在开发一个更新的，全面的城市污泥和其他固体废物的固体水解模型。通过这个项目获得的知识是至关重要的，以改善目前的技术，其中固体水解是一个限速步骤的优化。 该项目的重点是废水污泥，这是一种复杂的废物，需要进行固体水解处理和处置。 然而，所开发的固体水解模型也可以用于其他应用，例如利用固体基质的生物能源技术（例如，纤维素）。 一个全面的固体水解模型可以让环境工程师更好地预测厌氧消化器的性能，并且对于了解新技术在废水处理领域的表现至关重要。 例如，污泥预处理技术作为提高固体水解速率的手段出现在废水领域。 因此，该项目将使用MXC作为快速高通量工具，以确定特定固体废物的最佳预处理技术。虽然我们使用MXC来学习微生物动力学的新见解，但它们也成为教学和学习工具，从而扩大了我们研究的影响。 微生物电化学可以概括为研究复杂体系中微生物动力学的一种工具。

CBET - 1335884Cesar I. TorresArizona State University This project will address our need to better understand solids hydrolysis by anaerobic microorganisms, focusing on municipal wastewater sludge. Solids hydrolysis is a crucial, rate-limiting step in wastewater sludge treatment; while it is also important for many bioenergy processes, such the production of biofuels from cellulose. Given the complexity of wastewater sludge, solids hydrolysis encompasses many individual processes that are difficult to resolve. The lack of comprehensive and highly resolved data from biological experiments has led to insufficient validation of existing models for sludge hydrolysis. The use of a microbial electrochemical cell (MXC) anode, powered by anode respiring bacteria (ARB), provides a new alternative to probe microbial hydrolysis kinetics events with a much greater precision and higher temporal resolution than current methods based on methane production. An MXC allows us to measure respiration rates of the ARB at a very high temporal resolution ( 1 minute) by measuring their electric current. Simultaneous monitoring of solids and soluble microbial hydrolysis components along with current production will enable the accurate measurement of transient hydrolysis rates with a deeper elucidation of the underlying mechanisms. High resolution MXC data, along with analytical measurements, will provide a strong basis for describing lag times for hydrolysis of the three main components of solid organic matter: carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. Through the data collected, this project aims to develop an updated, comprehensive solids hydrolysis model for municipal sludge and other solid wastes. The knowledge obtained through this project is crucial to improve the optimization of current technologies in which solids hydrolysis is a rate-limiting step. The project focuses on wastewater sludge, a complex waste that requires solid hydrolysis for its treatment and disposal. However, the solids-hydrolysis models developed can also be used in other applications, such as bioenergy technologies that utilize a solid substrate (e.g., cellulose). A comprehensive solids hydrolysis model can allow environmental engineers to better predict the performance of anaerobic digesters and will be essential to understand how new technologies will perform in the wastewater treatment field. For example, sludge pre-treatment technologies are emerging in the wastewater field as a means to improve the rate of solids hydrolysis. Thus, this project will use MXCs as rapid high throughput tools to identify the best pre-treatment technology for a given solid waste. While we use MXCs to learn new insights on microbial kinetics, they also become a teaching and learning tool, thus broadening the impacts of our research. Microbial electrochemistry can be epitomized as a tool to study microbial kinetics in complex systems.