[Pilot study of thermal treatment/thermophilic anaerobic digestion process treating waste activated sludge of high...

A pilot-scale experiment about the process of "thermal pretreatment at 70°C/thermophilic anaerobic digestion" of waste activated sludge of high solid content (8% -9% ) was conducted. The process employed thermal treatment of 3 days to accelerate the hydrolysis and thermophilic digestion to enhance anaerobic reaction. Thus it was good at organic removal and stabilization. When the solid retention time (SRT) was longer than 20 days, the VSS removal rate was greater than 42. 22% and it was linearly correlated to the SRT of the aerobic digestion with the R2 of 0. 915 3. It was suggested that SRT of anaerobic digestion was 25 days in practice. VSS removal rate and biogas production rate of the pilot experiment were similar to those of the run-well traditional full-scale sludge anaerobic digestion plants (solid content 3% -5% ) and the plant of high solid content using German technique.