Comparison between inhibitor and uncoupler for minimizing excess sludge production of an activated sludge process

In order to study the minimization of excess sludge production,the reduction in the excess sludge production in the presence of an inhibitor and uncoupler was studied in this work.The experimental results show that such an addition could effectively reduce the production of excess sludge.With the energy uncoupling model established in this work,energy uncoupling coefficient(Eu)was used to evaluate the reduction in excess sludge production.The energy uncoupling coefficients in the presence of dinitrophenol(dNP),Zn^(2+),and Cu^(2+)was 0.75,0.46,and 0.18,respectively.The analysis demonstrated that energy spilling occurred in the presence of dNP,and that dNP was an effective uncoupler for reducing the production of excess activated sludge without affecting the microbial respiration activity.

Optimized production of a novel bioflocculant M-C11 by Klebsiella sp. and its application in sludge dewatering

The optimized production of a novel bioflocculant M-C11 produced by Klebsiella sp. and its application in sludge dewatering were investigated. The optimal medium carbon source,nitrogen source, metal ion, initial pH and culture temperature for the bioflocculant production were glucose, NaNO3, MgSO4, and pH 7.0 and 25°C, respectively. A compositional analysis indicated that the purified M-C11 consisted of 91.2% sugar, 4.6% protein and 3.9% nucleic acids（m/m）. A Fourier transform infrared spectrum confirmed the presence of carboxyl, hydroxyl,methoxyl and amino groups. The microbial flocculant exhibited excellent pH and thermal stability in a kaolin suspension over a pH range of 4.0 to 8.0 and a temperature range of 20 to 60°C.The optimum bioflocculating activity was observed as 92.37% for 2.56 mL M-C11 and 0.37 g/L CaCl2 dosages using response surface methodology. The sludge resistance in filtration（SRF）decreased from 11.6 × 1012 to 4.7 × 1012m/kg, which indicated that the sludge dewaterability was remarkably enhanced by the bioflocculant conditioning. The sludge dewatering performance conditioned by M-C11 was more efficient than that of inorganic flocculating reagents,such as aluminum sulfate and polymeric aluminum chloride. The bioflocculant has advantages over traditional sludge conditioners due to its lower cost, benign biodegradability and negligible secondary pollution. In addition, the bioflocculant was favorably adapted to the specific sludge pH and salinity.

Potential acute effects of suspended aluminum nitride (AlN) nanoparticles on soluble microbial products (SMP) of activated sludge

The study aims to identify the potential acute effects of suspended aluminum nitride（Al N）nanoparticles（NPs） on soluble microbial products（SMP） of activated sludge.Cultured activated sludge loaded with 1,10,50,100,150 and 200 mg/L of Al N NPs were carried out in this study.As results showed,Al N NPs had a highly inverse proportionality to bacterial dehydrogenase and OUR,indicating its direct toxicity to the activated sludge viability.The toxicity of Al N NPs was mainly due to the nano-scale of Al N NPs.In SMP,Al N NPs led to the decrease of polysaccharide and humic compounds,but had slight effects on protein.The decrease of tryptophan-like substances in SMP indicated the inhibition of Al N NPs on the bacterial metabolism.Additionally,Al N NPs reduced obviously the molecular weight of SMP,which might be due to the nano-scale of Al N.