title: Mesophilic anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge and a lixiviation of sugar beet pulp: optimisation of the semi-continuous process.
abstract: This study examine the effect of an increased organic loading rate on the efficiency of the stirred tank reactor treating sewage sludge and sugar beet pellets and to report on its steady-state performance. The digester was subjected to a program of steady-state operation over a range of hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 30 to 6 days and organic loading rates (OLRs) of up to 1.7 kgCOD/m(3)d to evaluate its treatment capacity. The COD removal efficiency was found to be 84.23% COD in the digester when treating mixture sewage sludge/lixiviation of sugar beet pulp at 1.27 kgCOD/m(3)d (10-days SRT). The volumetric methane level produced in the digester reached 0.7 m(3)CH4/m(3)d and the methane yield was 0.64m(3)CH4/kgCODremoval. Therefore, anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge and lixiviation of sugar beet pulp improve the biogas productivity and the organic matter removal in addition to lowering solids retention times in the system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Technologies, University of Cádiz, Campus Puerto Real, 11510 Puerto Real, Cádiz, Spain. rocio.montanes@uca.es
authors.forename: Rocio
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Montañés
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pérez
authors.forename: Rosario
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Solera
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D027461:Beta vulgaris; D057919:Biological Oxygen Demand Analysis; D012722:Sewage
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage
keywords: Anaerobic co-digestion; Continuously stirred tank reactors; Methane yield; Sewage sludge; Sugar beet pulp