Title: Biogas and methane production efficiency of sewage sludge supplemented with conductive materials

Authors: Yağmur Uysal; Burcu Mut

Addresses: Department of Environmental Engineering, Mersin University, Ciftlikköy, 33110, Mersin, Turkey ' Institute of Science, Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Avşar Kampüsü, 46000, Kahramanmara

Abstract: Biogas production is one of the methods used in the recycling of sewage sludge which is a major problem for wastewater treatment plants to dispose. Methane is the most valuable content of biogas obtained from an anaerobic digestion (AD) process for energy production and accounts its 60%-70% when the AD process is operated efficiently. Recently, researches have focused on accelerating this process and obtaining much more methane content from different wastes. For this purpose, various conductive materials are used in the AD process to accelerate electron transfer between bacteria populations. In this study, granular activated carbon (GAC) and magnetite (Fe₃O₄) nanoparticles coated with pectin were used to determine their effects on the biogas and methane production from sewage sludge. Laboratory-scale fermentation reactors were used, and the highest biogas production and its methane content (%) were determined in the sample containing of 2.0 g-PNC/gVSS as 554.3±5.5 mL/g-dw, and 43.5±0.3%, respectively.

Keywords: activated carbon; AC; biogas; Fe₃O₄; magnetite; methane; pectin-nanocomposite; PNC.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2020.107153

International Journal of Global Warming, 2020 Vol.20 No.4, pp.353 - 373

Received: 17 Oct 2019
Accepted: 02 Jan 2020
Published online: 04 May 2020 *

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