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Methanogenesis for Capturing Renewable Energy in Wastewater Sludge
In wastewater treatment plants, a complex community of microorganisms degrades the organic solids in slidges and convert the enery value to methane gas (CH4). Microbiological generation of methane, or methanogenesis, has been used for over a century, but it is not efficient enough to produce in terms of destroying the organic solids in the sludge or capturing the energy value as methane. Often, the methane gas is "flared," or simply burned in an open flame, because the amount of methane is not worth the cost to capture, clean, and convert to electricity. Research in the Center for Environmental Biotechnology aims to overcome these limitations on capturing renewable energy as methane.
On excellent example is a research project investigating the use of pulsed electric field (PEF) to pre-treat the sludge in order to increase the yield of methanogenesis and decrease the residual solids requiring disposal. We use a PEF unit designed by our partner, a private company called OpenCEL, to lyse cells and break apart biosolids, thereby increasing the energy sources (e.g., sugars) available to the microbial community, including the methanogens. We also partner with the Mesa Northwest Water Reclamation Plant, which hopes to increase the yield of methane from their digested enough that they can afford to convert the methane to electricity, perhaps transforming their wastewater treatment facility from an energy consumer to an energy producer.
Two anaerobic digestors containing waste activated sludge from the Mesa Northwest Water Reclamation Plant are producing methane via microbial transformations. The right reactor contains sludge pre-treated with a Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) process that lyses cells and makes organic material more available for the methanogenic bacteria to digest, thereby increasing the destruction of organic solids and the production of methane.
For details, please, contact professor Bruce Rittmann at the Center for Environmental Biotechnology.
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