Co-digestion of wastewater sludge: Choosing the optimal blend.

Anaerobic co-digestion (AcoD) is a promising strategy to increase the methane production of anaerobic digestion plants treating wastewater sludge (WAS). In this work the degradability of six different mixtures of WAS with fish waste (FW) or garden-grass (GG) was evaluated and compared to the three mono-digestions. Degradation performances and methanogenic pathways, determined with the isotopic signatures of biogas, were compared across time. Fish and grass mono-digestion provided a higher final methane production than WAS mono-digestion. In co-digestion the addition of 25% of fish was enough to increase the final methane production from WAS while 50% of grass was necessary. To determine the optimal blend of WAS co-digestion two indicators were specifically designed, representing the maximum potential production (ODI) and the expected production in mono-digestion conditions (MDI). The comparison between these indicators and the experimental results showed that the most productive blend was composed of 75% of co-substrate, fish or grass, with WAS. Indeed, the final methane production was increased by 1.9 times with fish and by 1.7 times with grass associated to an increase of the methane production rate by 1.5 times. Even if the same succession of methanogenic pathways across time was observed for the different mixtures, their relative proportions were different. Sewage sludge degradation was mostly achieved through hydrogenotrophic pathway while acetoclastic pathway was dominant for fish and grass degradation. These results were confirmed by the identification of Archaea with 16S sequencing.