title: Enhancing anaerobic digestion of lignocellulosic materials in excess sludge by bioaugmentation and pre-treatment.
abstract: This study attempted to enhance anaerobic conversion of lignocellulosic materials in excess sludge by bioaugmentation and pretreatment. The results reveal that highly active lignocellulolytic microorganisms (Clostridium stercorarium and Bacteroides cellulosolvens) could be enriched from anaerobic sludge in ordinarily operated anaerobic digester (AD). Inoculating these microorganisms into AD could substantially enhance the degradation of cellulose and hemicellulose. However, this effect of bioaugmentation was shielded for raw excess sludge due to lignin incrustation in native biosolids. For this problem, pretreatments including acid, alkali, thermal and ultrasonic methods were effectively used to deconstruct the lignin incrustation, in which thermal pretreatment was demonstrated to be the most effective one. Then, pretreatment associated with bioaugmentation was successfully used to enhance the energy conversion of lignocellulosic materials, which resulted in the degradation of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin to 68.8-78.2%, 77.4-89% and 15.4-33.7% respectively and thus increased the CH4 production by 210-246%, compared with ordinary AD.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Stormwater System and Water Environment/R&D Centre for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment (Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100044, PR China.
authors.forename: Yuansheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Stormwater System and Water Environment/R&D Centre for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment (Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100044, PR China. Electronic address: xdhao@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Xiaodi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Stormwater System and Water Environment/R&D Centre for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment (Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100044, PR China.
authors.forename: Jimin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Stormwater System and Water Environment/R&D Centre for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment (Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100044, PR China.
authors.forename: Yali
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
mesh_terms: D000693:Anaerobiosis; D001439:Bacteroides / Q000378:metabolism; D056804:Biofuels; D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003013:Clostridium / Q000378:metabolism; D008031:Lignin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D008697:Methane; D012722:Sewage / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000382:microbiology; D014465:Ultrasonics; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D056804:Biofuels; D012722:Sewage; C036909:lignocellulose; D008031:Lignin; D008697:Methane
keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Bioaugmentation; Excess sludge; Lignocellulosic materials; Pretreatment