Assessment of the impact of pretreatment of substrates by hydrodynamic disintegration on the structure of microbial communities involved in the anaerobic digestion in wastewater treatment plants and agricultural biogas plants
Project title: Assessment of the impact of pretreatment of substrates by hydrodynamic disintegration on the structure of microbial communities involved in the anaerobic digestion in wastewater treatment plants and agricultural biogas plants
Project Manager: dr hab. inż. Adam Muszyński, prof. uczelni
Implementing institution: Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Building Services, Hydro and Environmental Engineering. Cooperation with the Faculty of Chemistry, Warsaw University of Technology and the Center for Microbial Communities (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Source of funding: Excellence Initiative: Research University (IDUB) programme
Assessment of the impact of pretreatment of substrates by hydrodynamic disintegration on the structure of microbial communities involved in the anaerobic digestion in wastewater treatment plants and agricultural biogas plants
Four aims have been defined in the project:
I) to determine the impact of hydrodynamic disintegration process on the community structure of microorganisms involved in the anaerobic digestion process in wastewater treatment plants.
II) to determine the impact of substrate pre-treatment on the community structure of microorganisms involved in the anaerobic digestion process in agricultural biogas plants.
III) to assess the impact of parameters of hydrodynamic disintegration on sludge re-flocculation, which may lead to a decrease in substrate availability for microorganisms responsible for transformations of compounds during anaerobic sludge treatment, and consequently may have a negative effect on the anaerobic digestion process.
IV) mathematical modelling of the methane production process, which will verify the results obtained during the laboratory scale experiments.
The implementation of the first 2 tasks will be possible by conducting detailed microbiological research using molecular methods: DNA sequencing and fluorescence in situ hybridization technique. The research will be conducted in collaboration with the Center for Microbial Communities (Aalborg University). This assessment of sludge re-flocculation will be made based on detailed microscopic observations and image analysis, through which it will be possible to determine whether and how long after disintegration the re-flocculation of activated sludge flocs occurs.
The enhancement of the anaerobic digestion is an important research direction, not only because electricity and heat can be obtained from biogas, contributing to the reduction of current costs associated with the operation of wastewater treatment plants or agricultural biogas plants, but also as an important step towards the development of energy from renewable sources.