1. Integrated production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) with municipal wastewater and sludge treatment at pilot scale
- Author
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Simon Bengtsson, Per Magnusson, Dores G. Cirne, Sébastien Lacroix, F. Gerardin, Fernando Morgan-Sagastume, Tomas Alexandersson, Peter Johansson, Monica V. Arcos-Hernandez, Lamija Karabegovic, Anton Karlsson, G. Gaval, Alan Werker, and Markus Hjort
- Subjects
Environmental Engineering ,Nitrogen ,Biomass ,chemistry.chemical_element ,Pilot Projects ,Bioengineering ,Wastewater ,Polyhydroxyalkanoates ,Water Purification ,Belgium ,Cities ,Waste Management and Disposal ,Sewage ,Waste management ,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment ,Phosphorus ,General Medicine ,Fatty Acids, Volatile ,Activated sludge ,chemistry ,Batch Cell Culture Techniques ,Fermentation ,Sewage sludge treatment ,Environmental science ,Sewage treatment - Abstract
A pilot-scale process was operated over 22 months at the Brussels North Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in order to evaluate polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production integration with services of municipal wastewater and sludge management. Activated sludge was produced with PHA accumulation potential (PAP) by applying feast-famine selection while treating the readily biodegradable COD from influent wastewater (average removals of 70% COD, 60% CODsol, 24% nitrogen, and 46% phosphorus). The biomass PAP was evaluated to be in excess of 0.4gPHA/gVSS. Batch fermentation of full-scale WWTP sludge at selected temperatures (35, 42 and 55 °C) produced centrate (6-9.4 gCODVFA/L) of consistent VFA composition, with optimal fermentation performance at 42 °C. Centrate was used to accumulate PHA up to 0.39 gPHA/gVSS. The centrate nutrients are a challenge to the accumulation process but producing a biomass with 0.5 gPHA/gVSS is considered to be realistically achievable within the typically available carbon flows at municipal waste management facilities.
- Published
- 2015
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