Coastal aquaculture can contribute to eutrophication of receiving waters. New technologies and improved management practices allow the aquaculture industry to be more sustainable and economically viable. Current practices, however, do not provide an additional use for effluent water. Nitrogen, phosphorus and other effluent compounds could be valuable plant nutrients. Inflow and effluent water f...

Thermal hydrolysis pre-treatment of sludge for anaerobic digestion increases biogas production, enhances volatile solids reduction, and improves dewaterability of digested sludge. This study reports the performance of a thermochemical hydrolysis process (TCHP) that utilizes heat (60°C70 °C) and sodium hydroxide for cell lysis. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impacts of implementi...

Vinasses are a residual liquid generated after the production of beverages, such as mezcal and tequila, from agave (Agave L.), sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) or sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.). These effluents have specific characteristics such as an acidic pH (from 3.9 to 5.1), a high chemical oxygen demand (50,000-95,000 mg L(-1)) and biological oxygen demand content (18,900-78,300 mg L(-...

In the temperature range of 10 to 80 oC and in a batch digester, a typical activated sludge was digested aerobically. Reaction rate constants were determined by measuring the amounts of volatiles removed from the suspended solids at different time intervals during the process. The maximum value of the reaction rate constant (0.45 d ) occurred in the temperature range of 55-60 ̊C. Removal of indi...

BACKGROUND Solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) was initially adopted for the treatment of municipal solid waste. Recently, SS-AD has been increasingly applied to treat lignocellulosic biomass, such as agricultural and forestry residues. However, studies on the SS-AD process are few. In this study, the process performance and methane yield from SS-AD of alkaline-pretreated poplar processing ...

The maintenance of feedlot pen surfaces, which includes removal of manure and replacement of fill soil, is a time-consuming and expensive process. Pond ash (PA), a by-product of coal-fired electrical generation, has been proposed as a feedlot pen surface amendment because of its foundational support characteristics. A study was conducted to compare the performance of PA-surfaced pens to traditi...

The feasibility of the compartmentalized anaerobic migrating blanket reactor (AMBR) was studied for the treatment of low-strength soluble wastewater under low-temperature conditions. During an operating period of 186 days, a 20-L AMBR was fed nonfat dry milk substrate as a synthetic wastewater at low temperatures (15 and 20 degrees C). The concentration of the influent was constant at chemical ...

We introduce a new pretreatment called co-solvent-enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation (CELF) to reduce enzyme costs dramatically for high sugar yields from hemicellulose and cellulose, which is essential for the low-cost conversion of biomass to fuels. CELF employs THF miscible with aqueous dilute acid to obtain up to 95 % theoretical yield of glucose, xylose, and arabinose from corn stover ...

The purpose of the research presented herein was to evaluate the effects of solids residence time (SRT) and organic acid augmentation on biological phosphorus removal (BPR), with a focus on how these operational variables affect key metabolisms and the distribution of the microbial population. Using laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactors seeded with a mixed microbial consortium and fed real...

High-solids anaerobic digestion (HSAD) processes, when applied to different types of organic fractions of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), may easily be subjected to inhibition due to organic overloading. In this study, a new approach for predicting these phenomena was proposed based on the estimation of the putrescibility (oxygen consumption in 20 h biodegradation, OD(20)) of the organic mixture...