Enhanced biological phosphorus removal driven by short-chain fatty acids produced from waste activated sludge alkaline fermentation

This paper examines the feasibility of using alkaline fermentative short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) as the carbon sources of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) microorganisms. First, the released phosphorus was recovered from the SCFA-containing alkaline fermentation liquid by the formation of struvite precipitation, and 92.8% of the soluble ortho-phosphorus (SOP) could be recovered under conditions of Mg/P = 1.8 (mol/mol), pH 10.0, and a reaction time of 2 min. One reason for a Mg addition required in this study that was higher than the theoretical value was that the organic compounds consumed Mg. Then, two sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were operated, respectively, with acetic acid and alkaline fermentative SCFAs as the carbon source of EBPR. The transformations of SOP, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), and glycogen and the removal of phosphorus were compared between two SBRs. It was observed that the phosphorus removal efficiency was around 98% with the fermentative SCFAs, and about 71% with acetic acid, although the former showed much lower transformations of both PHAs and glycogen. The reasons that fermentative SCFAs caused much higher SOP removal than acetic acid were due to less PHAs used for glycogen synthesis and a higher PHA utilization efficiency for SOP uptake. Finally, the toxicity of fermentation liquid to EBPR microorganisms was examined, and no inhibitory effect was observed. It can be concluded from this study that the SCFAs from alkaline fermentation of waste activated sludge were a superior carbon source for EBPR microorganisms than pure acetic acid.