2021년 기준 4,339개소의 공공하수처리시설에서 발생하는 하수찌꺼기는 년간 4,271,110톤으로 하수처리장 신·증설 등으로 인해 매년 증가하고 있다. 하수찌꺼기 등 유기성폐자원의 처리를 위해서 퇴비화, 혐기성 소화, 열분해, 소각, 매립 등 다양한 방법이 적용되고 있다. 특히 혐기성 소화는 잔류고형물 저감, 자본비와 운영비 절감, 바이오에너지 생산 및 환경에 대한 영향 최소화 등의 장점을 지니고 있어 실행 가능한 방법 중의 하나로 간주되고 있다. 그러나 하수찌꺼기 등과 같이 고형물을 함유한 유기성폐자원의 혐기성 소화 시 가수분해 반응은 율속단계로 알려져 있다. 따라서 혐기성 소화 시 가수분해 효율을 증진하기 위하여 초음파, 마이크로웨이브, 화학적 전처리, 열가수분해 등의 방법이 적용되고 있다. 특히 열가수분해의 경우 지난 20년간 관련 연구가 꾸준히 이루어져 많은 수의 실 규모 시설이 현장에 적용되었다. 그럼에도 불구하고 높은 에너지 소비, 혐기성 소화 저해물질 생성 및 색도로 인한 자외선 소독 효율 저감 등으로 인해 아직도 관련 연구가 지속적으로 진행 중이다 따라서 본 논문에서는 하수찌꺼기의 안정화와 혐기성 소화조의 효율 향상을 위해 가용화 기술 중 대표적이고 상용화가 가장 많이 이루어진 열가수분해에 대해 고찰하고자 한다. 특히 하수처리시설에서 열가수분해와 혐기성 소화조를 연계 하는 경우 예상되는 문제점과 해결방안에 대한 제시를 통해 혐기성 소화조의 안정성 및 메탄 발생량 향상, 하수처리시설 찌꺼기의 효율적 저감 및 에너지 자립화에 기여하고자 한다.

The object of this study is to feasibility assesment for co-digestion efficiency of food waste recycling wastewater(FWR) with thermal hydrolysis process dehydration cake (THP Sludge). As a result of THP pre-treatment experimental conditions to 160oC and 30 minutes, the solubility rate(conversion rate of TCOD to SCOD) of the THP sludge increased by 34%. And the bio-methane potential in the THP sludge increased by about 1.42 times from 0.230 to 0.328 m3 CH4/kg VS compared to the non-pre-treatment. The substrates of the co-digestion reactor were FWR and THP sludge at a 1:1 ratio. Whereas, only FWR was used as a substrate in the digestion reactor as a control group. The experimental conditions are 28.5 days of hydraulic retention time(HRT) and 3.5 kg VS/m3-day of organic loading rate(OLR). During the 120 days operation period, the co-digestion reactor was able to operate stably in terms of water quality and methane production, but the FWR digestion reactor deteriorated after 90 days, and methane production decreased to 0.233 m3 CH4/kg VS, which is 67% of normal condition. After 120 days of the experiment, organic loading rate(OLR) of co-digestion reactor was gradually increased to 4.5 kg VS/m3-day and operated for 80 days. Methane production during 80 days was evaluated to be good at the level of 0.349 m3 CH4/kg VS. As a result of evaluating the dehydration efficiency of the sludge before/after 150-180oC THP using a filter press, it was confirmed that the moisture content of the sludge treated before THP at 180oC was 75% and improved by 8% from 83-85% level. Therefore, it is expected that the co-digestion reactor of FWR and THP sludge will ensure stable treatment water quality and increase bio-methane production and reduction effect of dehydration sludge volume.

The anaerobic digestion process produces methane while stabilizing sludge. As of 2020, 62 anaerobic digesters in public wastewater treatment plants are operational in Korea. Many researchers have studied to improve digester performance. Thermal hydrolysis technology is one of the pre-treatment methods for treating sludge. Reduced retention time and enhanced biogas production are the main advantages of sludge disintegration at relatively high temperatures and pressures. But nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are released from the pre-treated sludge. Phosphorus is a non-renewable resource that is essential to food production. Wastewater receives 20% of the total phosphate discharge, while 90% of the influent phosphorus load is in sludge. For efficient phosphorus recovery, it is essential to comprehend the phosphorus release characteristics during wastewater treatment, including anaerobic digestion. Biological or chemical processes can achieve phosphorus removal to comply with the effluent discharge limits regulations. The three primary sources of phosphorus in sludge are aluminum-bound phosphorus (Al-P), polyphosphate in phosphorus-accumulating organisms (PAOs), and iron-bound phosphorus (Fe-P). Anaerobic digestion is the typical method for recovering carbon and phosphorus. However, previous research has demonstrated that most phosphorus in anaerobic digestion occurs as a solid phase coupled with heavy metals. Therefore, the poor mass transfer rate results in a slow phosphorus release. Due to the recent growth in interest and significance of phosphorus recovery, many researchers have studied to improve the quantity of phosphorus released into the liquid phase through chelation addition, process operation optimization, and disintegration using sludge pre-treatment. The study aims to investigate characteristics of the phosphorus release associated with the thermal hydrolysis breakdown of sludge and propose a method for recovering phosphorus in a wastewater treatment plant. When solubilizing sludge using thermal hydrolysis pre-treatment, organic phosphates, inorganic phosphates, and polyphosphates are converted into ortho-phosphate. Therefore, applying thermal hydrolysis, anaerobic digestion, and phosphorus recovery processes (struvite formation or microbial electrolysis cells) can recover carbon and phosphorus.

본 연구에서는 파일럿 및 상용급 규모에서 UF 분리막을 결합한 혐기성 소화 공정을 장기간 운영하여 분리막의 성능, 소화효율, 바이오가스 생산량과 수질 등의 다양한 인자를 도출하였다. 파일럿 규모에서 막의 투과 플럭스는 15∼20 LMH, 막간 차압은 1∼3 kgf/cm2로 운전되었다. 유입수의 TCOD 와 SCOD 는 각각 113 g/L, 62 g/L 이었고, 유출수의 TCOD 와 SCOD는 UF 공정 이후 제거효 율이 93% 및 86% 로 나타났다. 상용급 규모의 운전 결과, 분리막의 투과 플럭스는 12∼15 LMH로 나타났다. 유입수의 CODcr, TS, VS는 각각 236 g/L, 62.5 g/L, 50.2 g/L였으며, 농축여과분리막을 통과 후 제거율은 각각 99%, 94% 및 98%로 조사되었다.

Response surface methodology (RSM) based on a Box-Behnken Design (BBD) was applied to optimize the thermal-alkaline pre-treatment operating conditions for anaerobic digestion of flotation scum in food waste leachate. Three independent variables such as thermal temperature, NaOH concentration and reaction time were evaluated. The maximum methane production of 369.2 mL CH4/g VS was estimated under the optimum conditions at 62.0°C, 10.1% NaOH and 35.4 min reaction time. A confirmation test of the predicted optimum conditions verified the validity of the BBD with RSM. The analysis of variance indicated that methane production was more sensitive to both NaOH concentration and thermal temperature than reaction time. Thermal-alkaline pretreatment enhanced the improvement of 40% in methane production compared to the control experiment due to the effective hydrolysis and/or solubilization of organic matters. The fractions with molecular weight cut-off of scum in food waste leachate were conducted before and after pre-treatment to estimate the behaviors of organic matters. The experiment results found that thermal-alkaline pre-treatment could reduce the organic matters more than 10kD with increase the organic matters less than 1kD.

Food waste leachate (FWL) is a serious pollutant waste coming from the food waste recycling facilities in Korea. FWL has a high organic matter content and high COD to nitrogen (COD/N) ratio, which can disturb efficient methane production in the anaerobic digestion of FWL. In the present study a microalga, Clorella vulgaris (C.V), was used as co-substrate for the FWL anaerobic digestion in order to supply nutrients, decrease the COD/N ratio and increase its methane yield. Different co-digestion mixtures (COD/N ratios) were studied by using biochemical methane potential test and modified Gompertz equation for kinetic study. Mixed substrate of FWL and C. vulgaris in the co-digestion clearly showed more the biomethane yield than the sole substrates. The maximum methane production, 827.7 mL-CH4/g-VS added, was obtained for COD/N ratio of 24/1, whereas the highest improvement of methane yield was found for COD/N ratio of 15/1.

Anaerobic Digestion of thickened septage was investigated in this study. Thickening could reduce the volume of septage to be treated to about 40% with 12hr HRT. The VS and BOD removal efficiencies were respectively 28 to 45%, and 75% when digested the thickened septage with 30 day HRT Or $1.4kgVS/m^3/d$. The BOD removal efficiency could be increased to about 90% with subsequent settling tank with about 6 hours HRT. The gas production rate was 0.22 to $0.35m^3gas/kgVSadd$($0.75m^3gas/kgVSrm$), or $1.32m^3gas/kgBOD_{rm}$. In addition, the supernatant of thickener could be returned to the aeration tank treating domestic sewage. In this case, a BOD loading rate of 0.5 to $0.7kgBOD/m^3/d$ or 0.5kgBOD/kgMLVSS/d was proposed for 80% BOD reduction.

The objectives of this paper are to present data to illustrate how an advanced digestion process, two-phase digestion, can provide superior performance in terms of waste stabilization efficiency and net energy recovery. As the result, it is possible to separate enrichment cultures of acidogenic and methanogenic organisms in isolated environments by kinetic control involving manipulation of dilution rates. In single-phase digestion process, HRT and COD loading for effective operation were 14.29 days and 2.33kg $COD/m^3$ day, but two-phase digestion may be conducted efficiently at 7 days of HRT and 5.71kg $COD/m^3$ day of loading. Data from this studies showed that the two-phase process is better than single-phase digestion under all test conditions when compared on the bases of gas yield and production rate, reductions of COD and VS, buffer capacity, and unconverted volatile acids in the effluent.

This study evaluated the biochemical methane potential (BMP) of primary sludge, secondary sludge, and food waste in batch anaerobic mono-digestion tests, and investigated the effects of mixture ratio of those organic wastes on methane yield and production rate in batch anaerobic co-digestion tests, that were designed based on a simplex mixture design method. The BMP of primary sludge, secondary sludge and food waste were determined as 234.2, 172.7, and 379.1 mL CH4/g COD, respectively. The relationships between the mixing ratio of those organic wastes with methane yield and methane production rate were successfully expressed in special cubic models. Both methane yield and methane production rate were estimated as higher when the mixture ratio of food waste was higher. At a mixing ratio of 0.5 and 0.5 for primary sludge and food waste, the methane yield of 297.9 mL CH4/g COD was expected; this was 19.4% higher than that obtained at a mixing ratio of 0.3333, 0.3333 and 0.3333 for primary sludge, secondary sludge, and food waste (249.5 mL CH4/g COD). These findings could be useful when designing field-scale anaerobic digersters for mono- and co-digestion of sewage sludges and food waste.

Herein , the effect of changes in the organic loading rate in anaerobic digestion was evaluated. The experiment was carried out by a laboratory -scale semi-continuous stirred tank reactor, and feedstock was food-waste leached. The organic loading rate was increased by 0.5 kgVS/m3 in each phase from 1.0 kgVS/m3 to 4.0 kgVS/m3. At the end of the operation, to check the failure of the reactor, the organic loading rate was increased by 1.0 kgVS/m3 in each phase and reached 6.0 kgVS/m3. This shows that the biogas yield decreased as organic loading rate increased. Biogas production seemed to be unstable at 3.5–6.0 kgVS/m3. Moreover, biogas production dramatically fell to approximately 0 mL at 6.0 kgVS/m3, which was decided as the operation failure on the 16th day of the las tphase. The result of the reactor analysis shows that the cumulation of volatile fatty acid increased as the organic loading rate increased. This seems to occur due to the decreasein pH in the reactor and led to extinction of anaerobic bacteria, which were the biogas products. Although the buffer compound (alkalinity) could prevent the decline in pH, the concentration of alkalinity was found to be lacking at a high organic loading rate

In this study, the effect of different reaction times for thermal-alkaline pretreatment on the solubilization and biogasification of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) were evaluated. Thermal-alkaline pretreatment tests were performed at 73 °C and pH 13 at 0-120 h reaction times. The mesophilic anaerobic batch tests were performed with untreated and pretreated PHB samples. The increase in the pretreatment reaction time results in a 52.8-98.8% increase of the abiotic solubilization efficiency of the PHB samples. The reaction time required to achieve solubilization efficiencies of 50%, 90%, and 95% were 10.5, 52.0, and 89.6 h, respectively. The biogasification of the untreated PHB samples achieved a specific methane production rate of 3.6 mL CH4/g VSS/d and require 101.3 d for complete biogasification. The thermal-alkaline pretreatment significantly improved specific methane production rate (10.2-16.0 time increase), lag time (shortened by 76-81%), and time for complete biogasification (shortened by 21-83%) for the biogasification of the PHB samples when compared to those of the untreated PHB samples. The improvement was higher as the reaction time of the thermal-alkaline pretreatment increased. The findings of this study could be used as a valuable reference for the optimization of the biogasification process in the treatment of PHB wastes.

In this study, the inhibition of ammonia on anaerobic digestion of butyric acid was evaluated and the potential alleviating effects of such ammonia inhibition by the addition of magnetite particles were investigated. Independent anaerobic batch tests fed with butyric acid as a sole organic source were conducted in twenty 60-mL glass bottles with 10 different treatment conditions, comprising ammonia: 0.5, 2.0, 4.0, 6.0, and 7.0 g total ammonia nitrogen (TAN)/L and magnetite particles: 0 mM and 20 mM. The increase in ammonia concentration did not cause significant inhibition on methane yield; however, a significant inhibition on lag time and specific methane production rate was observed. The IC50 in the control treatments (without magnetite addition) was estimated as 6.2654 g TAN/L. A similar inhibition trend was observed in magnetite-added treatments; however, the inhibition effect by ammonia was significantly alleviated in lag time and specific methane production rate when compared to those in the control treatments. The lag time was shortened by 1.6–46.3%, specific methane production rate was improved by 6.0–69.0%. In the magnetite-added treatments, IC50 was estimated as 8.5361 g TAN/L. This study successfully demonstrated the potential of magnetite particles as an enhancer in anaerobic digestion of butyric acid under conditions of ammonia stress.

The present study investigated the effect of ammonia load on microbial communities in mesophilic anaerobic digestion of propionic acid. A laboratory-scale continuous anaerobic digester treating propionic acid as a sole organic substrate was operated under non-inhibitory condition and inhibitory conditions with ammonia (1.5 g and 3.5 g ammonia-N/L, respectively), and bacterial and archaeal communities in the steady states of each ammonia condition were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. Thirteen bacterial families were detected as abundant bacterial groups in mesophilic anaerobic digestion of propionic acid. Increase in ammonia concentration resulted in significant shifts in microbial community structures. Syntorophobacter, Pelotomaculum, and Thermovigra were determined as the dominant groups of (potential) propionate oxidizing bacteria in the non-inhibitory condition, whereas Cryptanaerobacter and Aminobacterium were the dominant groups of (potential) propionate oxidizing bacteria in the ammonia-inhibitory condition. Methanoculleus and Methanosaeta were the dominant methanogens. Acetate-oxidation coupled with hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis might be enhanced with increases in the relative abundances of Methanoculleus and Tepidanaerobacter acetatoxydans under the ammonia-inhibitory condition. The results of the present study could be a valuable reference for microbial management of anaerobic digestion systems that are exposed to ammonia inhibition and propionic acid accumulation.

Organic wastewater generated from polyester manufacturing processes was selected from H company to investigate the feasibility of anaerobic digestion that produces gases including methane. Bio Methane Potential (BMP) tests were conducted to measure the gas production and methane concentration for 7 process wastewater and 2 kinds of sludges from the H company. Also, along with monitoring pH and alkalinity during the anaerobic digestion process, the concentrations of COD and 1,4-dioxane were measured with 4 different operating conditions for N Emulsion (NE) and Ethylene Glycol (EG) wastewater. The BMP tests showed that 65% of methane was produced from NE and EG wastewater. This suggests that the organic wastewater from H company can be effectively treated by an anaerobic digester by which more than 90% of COD was removed.

Livestock manure treatments have become a more serious problem because massive environmental pollutions such as green and red tides caused by non-point pollution sources from livestock manures have emerged as a serious social issue. In addition, more food wastes are being produced due to population growth and increased income level. Since the London Convention has banned the ocean dumping of wastes, some other waste treatment methods for land disposal had to be developed and applied. At the same time, researches have been conducted to develop alternative energy sources from various types of wastes. As a result, anaerobic digestion as a waste treatment method has become an attractive solution. In this study has three objectives: first, to identify the physical properties of the mixture of livestock wastewater and food waste when combining food waste treatment with the conventional livestock manure treatment based on anaerobic mesophilic digestion; second, to find the ideal ratio of waste mixture that could maximize the collection efficiency of methane (CH4) from the anaerobic digestion process; and third, to promote CH4 production by comparing the biodegradability. As a result of comparing the reactors R1, R2, and R3, each containing a mixture of food waste and livestock manure at the ratio of 5:5, 7:3, and 3:7, respectively, R2 showed the optimum treatment efficiencies for the removal of Total Solids (TS) and Volatile Solids (VS), CH4 production, and biodegradability.