Decades of research have been dedicated to the enhancement of anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge to overcome common drawback as low efficiency of organic matter degradation. Thermal hydrolysis is nowadays the leading approach for improving the degradability of the sludge. increasing the biogas production at the existing sludge treatment process. Additionally, thermal hydrolysis improves the dewaterability of digested sludge. Improvement of the dewaterability brings lower operational costs for the subsequent sludge processing.
On the other hand, problems for following anaerobic digestion are arising due to the thermal hydrolysis such as free ammonia inhibition or recalcitrant compounds production which needs to be overcome or minimized.
In this Ph.D. topic, we will study the sludge structure and dewaterability of sludge while applying different conditions of thermal pretreatment processes prior to anaerobic digestion. The aim is to propose the optimal method of thermal hydrolysis in relation to different aspects of digestion process and digested sludge quality.
