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Fermentation
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Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge: New Insights and Future Challenges
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Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge: New Insights and Future Challenges

A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Industrial Fermentation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 May 2025 | Viewed by 4810

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Alessio Siciliano

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Guest Editor
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Università della Calabria, 87036 Cosenza, Italy
Interests: anaerobic digestion; biogas; bioreactors; organic waste pretreatment processes; water and wastewater treatment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Carlo Limonti

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Guest Editor
Department of Environmental Engineering, Università della Calabria, Cosenza, Italy
Interests: wastewater treatment; nutrients removal and recovery; anaerobic digestion; soil remediation; waste disposal
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Giulia Maria Curcio

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy
Interests: wastewater treatment; nutrients removal and recovery; anaerobic digestion; soil remediation; waste disposal
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wastewater treatment plants produce large quantities of biological sludge that must be subjected to treatment before utilization or disposal since it contains partially degraded organic matter, nutrients, pathogens, and various toxic organic compounds, such as surfactants, hydrocarbons, and residues derived from plastics.  In this context, anaerobic digestion (AD) can play a primary role in sludge management, as it allows for the required biological stabilization and energy recovery through biogas production at the same time. Nevertheless, due to its complex characteristics, sewage sludge is often barely degradable under conventional anaerobic processes. Therefore, adequate methodologies are necessary to overcome the digestion limitations of sewage sludge. In this regard, scientific research in recent years has taken different directions. The main approaches for the enhancement of anaerobic digestion processes can be summarized as optimization of the process parameters, co-digestion, sludge pre-treatment, additive supplementation, optimization of bioreactor configurations, development of innovative digesters, and application of genetic technologies.

The Special Issue welcomes papers focused on the latest knowledge and innovations concerning the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. The papers must be original and provide a significant contribution to the scope of the Special Issue.

Thank you for your contributions.

Dr. Alessio Siciliano
Dr. Carlo Limonti
Dr. Giulia Maria Curcio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • anaerobic digestion
  • biogas
  • digesters
  • methane
  • sewage sludge

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 3643 KiB  
Article
The Enhancing Effect of Biochar Derived from Biogas Residues on the Anaerobic Digestion Process of Pig Manure Water
by Zhanjiang Pei, Xiao Wei, Shiguang Jin, Fengmei Shi, Jie Liu, Su Wang, Pengfei Li, Yifei Luo, Yongkang Wang, Tengfei Wang, Zenghui Ma, Yinxue Li and Yanling Yu
Fermentation 2024, 10(12), 644; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10120644 - 15 Dec 2024
Viewed by 884
Abstract
Biochar-based additives can enhance the ability to produce methane during anaerobic digestion (AD), and biogas residues (BRs) are solid waste that can cause environmental pollution. Therefore, in this work, BRs were used as raw material to prepare biochar, and Fe3+ was used [...] Read more.
Biochar-based additives can enhance the ability to produce methane during anaerobic digestion (AD), and biogas residues (BRs) are solid waste that can cause environmental pollution. Therefore, in this work, BRs were used as raw material to prepare biochar, and Fe3+ was used to modify biochar for use in the AD process, generating pig manure water (PMW). The results showed that biogas residue biochar (BRB) showed good pore size and had a “honeycomb structure” on its surface. The commercially available iron–carbon composite material (Fe-C) showed the greatest cumulative methane production (CMP), the greatest removal rates of chemical oxygen demand (COD), and the greatest degradation rate of volatile fatty acids (VFAs), with the order of Fe-C > Fe3+-modified biogas residue biochar (FBRB) > BRB > control group. Fe3+ and Fe0 showed similar effects, where both could enhance the methanogenesis performance of anaerobic digestion by promoting direct interspecific electron transfer, and Fe0 was slightly more effective than Fe3+. Bacteroidotas and Firmicutes were the predominant phyla, and Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 was the predominant genus. The addition of biochar and Fe3+ promoted the transformation of microorganisms from the conventional metabolic mode into an efficient metabolic mode. Extracellular electron transfer played a crucial role in this. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge: New Insights and Future Challenges)
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17 pages, 2620 KiB  
Article
Co-Digestion of Dehydrated Sewage Sludge (DSS) and Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW): Analysis of the Process and Economic Evaluations
by Carlo Limonti, Adolfo Le Pera, Miriam Sellaro, Giulia Grande, Giulia Maria Curcio, Tiziana Andreoli, Elvis Gribaldo Aucancela Rivera and Alessio Siciliano
Fermentation 2024, 10(12), 600; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10120600 - 24 Nov 2024
Viewed by 796
Abstract
This study aimed to assess the efficacy of anaerobic digestion (AD) in the co-digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and municipal dehydrated sewage sludge (DSS). The experiments were conducted in batch and continuous mode under mesophilic conditions (T = [...] Read more.
This study aimed to assess the efficacy of anaerobic digestion (AD) in the co-digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and municipal dehydrated sewage sludge (DSS). The experiments were conducted in batch and continuous mode under mesophilic conditions (T = 37 ± 2 °C). The results of batch tests indicated that the use of DSS in co-digestion with OFMSW led to a biomethane production of 422 NmLCH4/gVS with a production yield of 450 NmLCH4/gVSremoved. Nevertheless, the findings of the tests conducted with OFMSW alone demonstrated superior performance. A pilot plant reactor with a volume of approximately 2 m3 was employed in the continuous tests. The results corroborated the trends observed in the batch tests. In particular, the specific methane production yields decreased from 0.47 Nm3/kgVS when OFMSW was the sole substrate to 0.44 Nm3/kgVS when DSS was introduced, with a DSS/OFMSW ratio (RDO) of 0.1. Despite the reduction in methane production yield observed in both batch and continuous tests, a techno-economic assessment of the process indicated the potential profitability of DSS in co-digestion with OFMSW. Notably, the estimated profit from utilizing DSS in a percentage of 10% (RDO = 0.1) is 108 EUR/ton, compared to 102 EUR/ton when only OFMSW is employed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge: New Insights and Future Challenges)
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24 pages, 6222 KiB  
Article
Evaluating the Performance of Anaerobic Digestion with Upstream Thermal Hydrolysis—What Role Does the Activated Sludge Process Play?
by Johannes Rühl and Markus Engelhart
Fermentation 2024, 10(11), 591; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10110591 - 17 Nov 2024
Viewed by 946
Abstract
The performance of anaerobic digestion of mixed sludge (MS) with upstream thermal hydrolysis of waste activated sludge (WAS) was evaluated and compared to conventional anaerobic digestion. In contrast to previous studies, this work focuses on the evaluation of the impact of the activated [...] Read more.
The performance of anaerobic digestion of mixed sludge (MS) with upstream thermal hydrolysis of waste activated sludge (WAS) was evaluated and compared to conventional anaerobic digestion. In contrast to previous studies, this work focuses on the evaluation of the impact of the activated sludge process, which was assessed using a temperature-normalized solids retention time (SRTASP,T). For this purpose, data from a full-scale wastewater treatment plant related to SRTASP,T, primary sludge (PS) and WAS production were combined with experimental data from laboratory-scale anaerobic digestion of PS, WAS, thermally hydrolyzed WAS, and MS. The parameter SRTASP,T was used as a key link between the full-scale and experimental data. For WAS, SRTASP,T essentially influenced the efficacy of thermal hydrolysis on the performance of anaerobic digestion. The increase in methane yield was higher with increasing SRTASP,T. When considering MS, however, the increase was significantly lower and leveled out over the investigated range of SRTASP,T, mainly due to corresponding WAS/MS ratios. This study demonstrates that the knowledge of SRTASP,T, sludge production, and anaerobic degradability enables the assessment of the potential of thermal hydrolysis and its effect on anaerobic digestion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge: New Insights and Future Challenges)
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13 pages, 2838 KiB  
Article
Upgrading Denitrification by Optimal Adsorption of SCFAs from Sludge Alkaline Fermentation Liquid by Acid-Modified Sepiolite
by Saisai Su, Shuyun Ning, Shaobo Wu, Yanqing Duan, Yanjuan Gao and Zhihong Liu
Fermentation 2024, 10(9), 476; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10090476 - 13 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1257
Abstract
Sludge alkaline fermentation liquid (AFL) is a potential carbon source for biological denitrification. However, its effectiveness is limited due to the presence of nutrients and heavy metals. In this study, acid-modified sepiolite (MSEP) was used to extract short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) from AFL [...] Read more.
Sludge alkaline fermentation liquid (AFL) is a potential carbon source for biological denitrification. However, its effectiveness is limited due to the presence of nutrients and heavy metals. In this study, acid-modified sepiolite (MSEP) was used to extract short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) from AFL under optimized conditions and then with the prepared MSEP-AFL as a carbon source for denitrification. The optimal condition with an MSEP dosage of 1.96 g/L and pH 7.93 at 30 °C was obtained based on single-factor experiments and response surface methodology (RSM). Carbon balance revealed that 96.2% of the SCFAs, including 43.7% acetate and 23.5% propionic acid, was retained in the MSEP, demonstrating its high selectivity. The adsorption process followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isothermal model, indicating dominant physical adsorption on the surface or in the fiber pores. This was further supported by the changes in the morphological features and surface properties of the MSEP. In the batch nitrate utilization experiments, the prepared MSEP-AFL was proven to be efficient as a carbon source, with a nitrate removal efficiency of 88.7% and a specific denitrification rate of 8.2 mg NOx-N/g VSS·h, which was 22% higher than that of the AFL. This was due to the establishment of a delicate “release–utilization” balance. These findings contribute to our understanding of the use of AFL for denitrification. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Anaerobic Digestion of Sewage Sludge: New Insights and Future Challenges)
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