title: Electrical energy production from biosolids: a comparative study between anaerobic digestion and ultra-high-temperature gasification.
abstract: Biosolids management is one of the most expensive and complicated processes in sanitation engineering. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is often employed for the stabilization ofbiomass and for energy production, as approximately 50% of the carbon entering the anaerobic digester is recovered as methane (CH4). Gasification has been used recently for the thermal reformation of biosolids to synthesis gas (syngas), which primarily consists ofcarbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2). In the present work, the net electrical energy production from biosolids has been calculated, for a typical activated sludge wastewater treatment plant, with an inlet flow rate of 75,708 m3/d (equal to 20 Mgd). The calculations suggest that the ultra-high-temperature gasification (UHTG) system can achieve a net electrical energy output of about 15.40 MJ/kg (dry biosolids), whereas the AD system can achieve values between 8.45 MJ/kg(dry biosolids). The latter values correspond to approximate net electrical energy power of 18.8 kW for UHTG, versus 9.9 kW for AD, for a wastewater treatment plant with capacity of 1000 m3/d; thus, the UHTG process yields approximately 190% of the energy that may be produced by the AD process.
authors.forename: Petros
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gikas
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D019149:Bioreactors; D004867:Equipment Design; D006358:Hot Temperature; D012722:Sewage; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage