GEMMA - Group of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology, Department of Hydraulic, Maritime and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech, c/Jordi Girona 1-3, Building D1, E-08034 Barcelona, Spain.
Advanced Water Management Centre, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Waste Manag. 2014 Nov;34(11):2098-103. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2014.06.004. Epub 2014 Jul 4.
High rate algal ponds are an economic and sustainable alternative for wastewater treatment, where microalgae and bacteria grow in symbiosis removing organic matter and nutrients. Microalgal biomass produced in these systems can be valorised through anaerobic digestion. However, microalgae anaerobic biodegradability is limited by the complex cell wall structure and therefore a pretreatment step may be required to improve the methane yield. In this study, ultrasound pretreatment at a range of applied specific energy (16-67 MJ/kg TS) was investigated prior to microalgae anaerobic digestion. Experiments showed how organic matter solubilisation (16-100%), hydrolysis rate (25-56%) and methane yield (6-33%) were improved as the pretreatment intensity increased. Mathematical modelling revealed that ultrasonication had a higher effect on the methane yield than on the hydrolysis rate. A preliminary energy assessment indicated that the methane yield increase was not high enough as to compensate the electricity requirement of ultrasonication without biomass dewatering (8% VS).
高效藻类塘是一种经济且可持续的废水处理替代方案，其中微藻和细菌共生生长，去除有机物和营养物质。这些系统中产生的微藻生物质可以通过厌氧消化进行增值利用。然而，微藻的厌氧生物降解性受到复杂细胞壁结构的限制，因此可能需要预处理步骤来提高甲烷产量。在这项研究中，在微藻厌氧消化之前，研究了一系列应用特定能量（16-67MJ/kg TS）的超声预处理。实验表明，随着预处理强度的增加，有机质的溶解（16-100%）、水解速率（25-56%）和甲烷产量（6-33%）得到了提高。数学模型表明，超声处理对甲烷产量的影响高于对水解速率的影响。初步的能量评估表明，甲烷产量的增加不足以弥补没有生物质脱水（8%VS）的超声处理所需的电力（8%VS）。
