TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of pre-fermentation and pulsed-electric-field treatment of primary sludge in microbial electrochemical cells
AU - Ki, Dongwon
AU - Parameswaran, Prathap
AU - Popat, Sudeep C.
AU - Rittmann, Bruce
AU - Torres, Cesar
N1 - Funding Information:
The funding for this work was provided by SERDP (# ER-2239 ) and NSF-CBET ( 1335884 ). We also thank Dave Rath and his staff for assistance obtaining samples at MNWWRP. Also, we thank Jared Alder to operate FP alpha unit and treat samples.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - The aim of this study was to investigate the combination of two technologies - pulsed electric field (PEF) pre-treatment and semi-continuous pre-fermentation of primary sludge (PS) - to produce volatile fatty acids (VFAs) as the electron donor for microbial electrolysis cells (MECs). Pre-fermentation with a 3-day solids retention time (SRT) led to the maximum generation of VFAs, with or without pretreatment of the PS through pulsed-electric-fields (PEF). PEF treatment before fermentation enhanced the accumulation of the preferred VFA, acetate, by 2.6-fold. Correspondingly, MEC anodes fed with centrate from 3-day pre-fermentation of PEF-treated PS had a maximum current density ∼3.1 A/m2, which was 2.4-fold greater than the control pre-fermented centrate. Over the full duration of batch MEC experiments, using pre-fermented centrate led to successful performance in terms of Coulombic efficiency (95%), Coulombic recovery (80%), and COD-removal efficiency (85%).
AB - The aim of this study was to investigate the combination of two technologies - pulsed electric field (PEF) pre-treatment and semi-continuous pre-fermentation of primary sludge (PS) - to produce volatile fatty acids (VFAs) as the electron donor for microbial electrolysis cells (MECs). Pre-fermentation with a 3-day solids retention time (SRT) led to the maximum generation of VFAs, with or without pretreatment of the PS through pulsed-electric-fields (PEF). PEF treatment before fermentation enhanced the accumulation of the preferred VFA, acetate, by 2.6-fold. Correspondingly, MEC anodes fed with centrate from 3-day pre-fermentation of PEF-treated PS had a maximum current density ∼3.1 A/m2, which was 2.4-fold greater than the control pre-fermented centrate. Over the full duration of batch MEC experiments, using pre-fermented centrate led to successful performance in terms of Coulombic efficiency (95%), Coulombic recovery (80%), and COD-removal efficiency (85%).
KW - Microbial electrolysis cell
KW - Pre-fermentation
KW - Pre-treatment
KW - Two-stage anaerobic treatment
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U2 - 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.06.128
DO - 10.1016/j.biortech.2015.06.128
M3 - Article
C2 - 26159378
AN - SCOPUS:84947021292
SN - 0960-8524
VL - 195
SP - 83
EP - 88
JO - Bioresource Technology
JF - Bioresource Technology
ER -