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

Return liquor from thermal hydrolysis process (THP) can significantly add to the nitrogen load of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and introduce UV quenching substances to the wastewater stream when recycled. While there are mature technologies in place to handle the inorganic nitrogen produced due to the thermal pretreatment, organic nitrogen remains a parameter of concern for utilities employing THP pretreatment. The impact of operating conditions of the THP on dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and UV absorbance in return liquor was investigated. Operating conditions studied were (1) operating temperature (2) solids retention time (SRT) in the anaerobic digester (3) THP flash pressure (4) the effect of co-digestion of sewage sludge with food waste and, (5) polymer conditioning. Operating temperature and polymer dose had the most significant impact on DON and UV quenching. It was found that an increase in operating temperature resulted in an increase in DON, which was primarily contributed by the hydrophilic fraction. An increase in temperature also resulted in increased UV254 absorbance. However, this trend was not linear and the increase was more pronounced when the temperature was increased from 150 C to 170 C. Increasing flash pressure from 25 psi to 45 psi did not have a significant impact on the return liquor. However, increasing the flash pressure to 75 psi increased the DON and UV254 absorbing compounds. Co-digesting the sludge with food waste resulted in a slight increase in DON and a decrease in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and UV quenching compounds. Increasing the SRT from 10 days to 15 days resulted in a slight decrease in DON but did not have any impact on UV254 absorbance. Overall, it can be concluded that optimizing operating conditions of thermal hydrolysis process can result in decreased DON and UV quenching compounds in the recycle stream. / Master of Science

Ozonförbehandling av avloppsvattenslam har diskuterats i litteraturen som en potentiell metod för att öka biogasproduktionen och minska slamvolymen. I detta arbete utvecklades en numerisk modell för att simulera effekten av ozonförbehandling på biogasproduktion genom anaerobrötning. Modellen bygger på en befintlig modell från litteraturen. Den antar att ozonering leder till en förbättring av hydrolyssteget samtidigt som de övriga stegen (acidogen, acetogen och metanogen) lämnas opåverkade. Modellen kan förutsäga biogasproduktionen för ett givet substrat förutsatt att den matas in i sin makromolekylära koncentration. Modellen är validerad mot fyra uppsättningar data från laboratorieexperiment rapporterade i litteraturen. Även genomförbarhetanalys och känslighetsanalys av modellen studerades. Skillnad i simulerade och experimentella data beräknades för olika ozondoser och en regressionsplot gjordes för att studera robustheten och noggrannheten hos modellen. / Ozone pretreatment of wastewater sludge has been discussed in the literature as a potential method for increasing biogas production and reducing sludge volume. In this work, a numerical model to simulate the effect of ozone pretreatment on biogas production by anaerobic digestion was developed. The model is based on an existing model from the literature. It assumes that ozonation leads to an enhancement of the hydrolysis step while leaving the other steps (acidogenic, acetogenic and methanogenic) unaffected. The model can predict the biogas production for any given substrate provided it is being inputted in its macromolecular concentration. The model is validated against four sets of data from laboratory experiments reported in the literature. Feasibility and sensitivity analysis of the model was also studied. Difference in the simulated and experimental data were calculated for different ozone dosages and a regression plot was made to study the robustness and accuracy of the model.