Impact of ozone assisted ultrasonication pre-treatment on anaerobic digestibility of sewage sludge

Impact of ultrasonication (ULS) and ultrasonication–ozonation (ULS-Ozone) pre-treatment on the anaerobic digestibility of sewage sludge was investigated with semi-continuous anaerobic reactors at solid retention time (SRT) of 10 and 20 days. The control, ULS and ULS-Ozone reactors produced 256, 309 and 348 mL biogas/g COD_fed and the volatile solid (VS) removals were 35.6%, 38.3% and 42.1%, respectively at SRT of 10 days. At SRT of 20 days, the biogas yields reached 313, 337 and 393 mL biogas/g COD_fed and the VS removal rates were 37.3%, 40.9% and 45.3% in the control, ULS and ULS-Ozone reactors, respectively. ULS-Ozone pre-treatment increased the residual organic amount in the digested sludge. These soluble residual organics were found to contain macromolecules with molecular weights (MW) larger than 500 kDa and smaller polymeric products with MW around 19.4 and 7.7 kDa. These compounds were further characterized to be humic acid-like substances with fluorescent spectroscopy analysis.