Enhancing Anaerobic Digestibility of Municipal Sludges by Physicochemical Pre-treatment

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With increasing quantity of municipal sewage sludge, the quality and level of treatment are of serious concern in Canada and many parts of the world, specifically, about 660,000 tons are produced annually in Canada. With the implementation of strict regulations on sludge disposal and closure of more landfills, sludge management is becoming increasingly challenging. Currently, not only the volatile solids stabilization efficiency of most existing anaerobic digesters is modest and relatively low but also the biosolids are difficult to dewater requiring high chemical conditioning doses. If this project is successful, stabilization efficiency will improve significantly targeting to consistently produce Class A biosolids (for unrestricted land disposal). Furthermore, higher biogas and energy production will be achieved. The main goal of this research is to develop a novel sludge pre-treatment process model using physicochemical agents such as temperature and pressure together with chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, and free nitrous acid. Furthermore, this research project aims to understand the effect of the particle size distribution (full spectra distribution) on the hydrolysis rate coefficient and the biodegradability of municipal secondary sludges.