A number of advanced pre-treatment techniques and methods have been evaluated for the sole purpose of improving digestibility of waste activated sludge. The pre-treatment of waste activated sludge (WAS) offers the benefit of releasing solubilized substrates, making them readily available to be utilized in the anaerobic digestion process. Other potential benefits include: reducing shock loading to the digester, improving overall digestibility and potentially providing filament / foaming control. Chlorine dioxide, a well-known disinfectant and oxidizing agent has been utilized in many drinking water processes around the world. Its use in wastewater treatment processes however is limited; especially in Canada where legislation has prevented its use for final effluent disinfection. As an oxidizing agent, chlorine dioxide induces cell rupture resulting in the release of soluble material, which when fed into the digester, may serve as readily available substrate for active microorganisms. This mode of action creates the potential for chlorine dioxide to be used as a sludge pre-treatment agent to improve digester performance and in alleviating pre-existing filamentous sludge bulking. This study was conducted using waste activated sludge obtained from the City of Winnipeg’s South End Water Pollution Control Centre (SEWPCC), with the following objectives: 1. Determine the efficacy of chlorine dioxide in alleviating pre-existing filamentous sludge bulking; 2. Determine chlorine dioxide ability to increase WAS solubilization; and 3. Define impact of chlorine dioxide on anaerobic digester performance. WAS pre-treatment using chlorine dioxide was found to be effective in alleviating filamentous bulking. This is significant as filamentous bulking in the activated sludge may lead several problems downstream. Following pre-treatment, sludge bulking was determined to be alleviated as observed by photomicrographic evidence and as measured by a 57% decrease in the stirred sludge volume index (sSVI). Particulate COD solubilization increased by 60%, 76%, and 74% over the untreated sludge for WAS pre-treated with 25, 50, and 100 mg ClO2/L (v/v), respectively. The pre-treatment of sludge using chlorine dioxide did not have any negative impact on digester performance although it also did not lead to improved performance. The volatile solids destruction and COD removal remained unchanged for both untreated and pre-treated sludge. Chlorine dioxide pre-treatment did not affect anaerobic digestion even at the lowest SRT evaluated; it is possible to decrease the digester SRT to as low as 6 days while maintaining the solids destruction and COD removal capability. Biogas production did not improve with increasing chlorine dioxide dosage during pre-treatment but also was not hindered by the pre-treatment agent. Chlorine dioxide was shown to alleviate filamentous bulking and improve solubility and has the potential to improve digester performance without negative impacts to the digester. However, the full benefit of the pre-treatment method may only be realized for complex “difficult to disintegrate” sludge types. / October 2016

In order to study the performance and mechanisms of excess sludge reduction in the activated sludge that incorporates the Cannibal™ Process, laboratory activated sludge systems incorporating an anaerobic bioreactor into the sludge recycle stream were operated. In this study, the solids production in the Cannibal system was about 35-40% of the conventional system under steady state conditions. The reduction in waste sludge was optimized when the interchange rate, (the ratio of sludge fed from the activated sludge system to the bioreactor compared to the total mass in the activated sludge system) was set at about 10%. It was found that the release of protein from the anaerobic bioreactor was greater than that from the aerobic bioreactor. The SOUR data suggested that the released protein from the anaerobic bioreactor was easily degraded when the sludge was returned to the activated sludge system. It was also found that when the proportion of sludge added to the anaerobic bioreactor in batch tests was approximately 10%, the protein release was about 30 mg/L. When the proportion of sludge added was increased to 26 to 41%, the release was reduced to 10 and 6 mg/L, respectively. Within 30 hours, the protein release was complete. This suggests that there is an optimum or maximum amount of recycle or interchange (~10%) for the process to function best. / Master of Science

The Cannibal system, comprised of an activated sludge process integrated with a side stream anaerobic bioreactor, is capable of reducing excess sludge up to 60% compared to the conventional activated sludge process. The hydraulic retention time (HRT) in the Cannibal bioreactor and the interchange rate (the percent of sludge by mass interchanged between the activated sludge system and the bioreactor on daily basis) are the two important operational parameters in the optimization of the Cannibal process. This research was designed to investigate the effect of the Cannibal bioreactor hydraulic retention time and the interchange rate on the solids destruction in the system. The first phase of this study has looked at the effect of three different HRTs, 5 day, 7 day and 10 day. The interchange rate during phase I was 10%. The results showed that the 7 day HRT can be recommended as the minimum retention period for the Cannibal process. The 5 day HRT Cannibal system had some settling problems and high volatile fatty acid content compared to the 7 day HRT Cannibal system. The protein and polysaccharide tests showed that the Cannibal bioreactor is primarily involved in the release of biopolymers which are degraded in the aerobic environment. The second part of this study focused on the effect of the interchange rate (IR) on the solids destruction in the system. The interchange rates that were applied in the system were 15%, 10%, 7%, 5% and 4%.The HRT in the Cannibal bioreactor was 7 day. The results showed that the 10% interchange rate gave maximum solids destruction than the other interchange rates. This implies that 10% is an optimum IR for the Cannibal system. Apart from higher solids wastage, the 4% and 5% IR Cannibal systems had higher volatile fatty acid production. / Master of Science