Overcoming deep-dewatering challenges in food waste digestate with polyethylene oxide as an innovative conditioning agent

IF 11.4 1区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL

Water Research Pub Date : 2024-11-23 DOI:10.1016/j.watres.2024.122831

Hou-Feng Wang , Yun-Yan Gao , Yuan-Ping Zeng , Xuan-Xin Chen , Zhi-Yi He , Raymond Jianxiong Zeng

{"title":"Overcoming deep-dewatering challenges in food waste digestate with polyethylene oxide as an innovative conditioning agent","authors":"Hou-Feng Wang , Yun-Yan Gao , Yuan-Ping Zeng , Xuan-Xin Chen , Zhi-Yi He , Raymond Jianxiong Zeng","doi":"10.1016/j.watres.2024.122831","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The effective treatment of food waste digestate is critical for reducing environmental pollution and mitigating carbon emissions, with deep dewatering playing a pivotal role. Conventional dewatering agents such as polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and polyacrylamide (PAM), commonly employed in municipal sludge treatment, exhibit limited efficacy when applied to food waste digestate due to the latter's high salinity and advanced fermentation stages. This study introduces polyethylene oxide (PEO) as a novel conditioning agent and investigates its dewatering performance in comparison to PAC and PAM, elucidating the underlying mechanism. PEO conditioning markedly improves deep-dewatering, reducing digestate moisture content from 93.11 % to 56.71 % and lowering specific resistance to filtration (SRF) by 90.3 %. In contrast, PAM, PAC, and their combination achieve moisture reductions to 81.18 %, 84.49 %, and 87.07 %, respectively, with significantly lower SRF improvements. PEO promotes the release of bound water by weakening solid-liquid binding energy, facilitating the transition of bound water to free water and enhancing overall water mobility. Moreover, compressibility coefficient analyses and X-ray computed tomography (X-CT) reveal that PEO treatment significantly increases filter cake porosity, with an effective porosity rate of 56.65 %, resulting in superior drainage performance. The enhanced dewatering efficiency of PEO stems from its ability to improve water permeability within the filter cake during compression, distinguishing its mechanism from traditional flocculation (PAM) and coagulation (PAC) approaches. This work highlights the potential of PEO as a highly effective solution for food waste digestate treatment in solid waste management, with its salt-resistant properties further extending its applicability to high-salinity waste streams.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":443,"journal":{"name":"Water Research","volume":"269 ","pages":"Article 122831"},"PeriodicalIF":11.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Water Research","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043135424017305","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The effective treatment of food waste digestate is critical for reducing environmental pollution and mitigating carbon emissions, with deep dewatering playing a pivotal role. Conventional dewatering agents such as polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and polyacrylamide (PAM), commonly employed in municipal sludge treatment, exhibit limited efficacy when applied to food waste digestate due to the latter's high salinity and advanced fermentation stages. This study introduces polyethylene oxide (PEO) as a novel conditioning agent and investigates its dewatering performance in comparison to PAC and PAM, elucidating the underlying mechanism. PEO conditioning markedly improves deep-dewatering, reducing digestate moisture content from 93.11 % to 56.71 % and lowering specific resistance to filtration (SRF) by 90.3 %. In contrast, PAM, PAC, and their combination achieve moisture reductions to 81.18 %, 84.49 %, and 87.07 %, respectively, with significantly lower SRF improvements. PEO promotes the release of bound water by weakening solid-liquid binding energy, facilitating the transition of bound water to free water and enhancing overall water mobility. Moreover, compressibility coefficient analyses and X-ray computed tomography (X-CT) reveal that PEO treatment significantly increases filter cake porosity, with an effective porosity rate of 56.65 %, resulting in superior drainage performance. The enhanced dewatering efficiency of PEO stems from its ability to improve water permeability within the filter cake during compression, distinguishing its mechanism from traditional flocculation (PAM) and coagulation (PAC) approaches. This work highlights the potential of PEO as a highly effective solution for food waste digestate treatment in solid waste management, with its salt-resistant properties further extending its applicability to high-salinity waste streams.

Abstract Image

查看原文本刊更多论文

用聚乙烯氧化物作为创新调节剂克服厨余消化物的深脱水难题

有效处理厨余沼渣对于减少环境污染和碳排放至关重要，其中深度脱水起着关键作用。聚合氯化铝（PAC）和聚丙烯酰胺（PAM）等传统脱水剂通常用于市政污泥处理，但由于厨余沼渣的高盐度和发酵阶段较晚，因此在应用于厨余沼渣时效果有限。本研究引入了聚环氧乙烷（PEO）作为新型调节剂，并对其与 PAC 和 PAM 的脱水性能进行了比较研究，同时阐明了其基本机理。PEO 调节剂明显改善了深度脱水，使沼渣含水量从 93.11% 降至 56.71%，比过滤阻力 (SRF) 降低了 90.3%。相比之下，PAM、PAC 及其组合可将水分含量分别降低到 81.18%、84.49% 和 87.07%，但 SRF 的改善幅度明显较低。PEO 可通过削弱固液结合能来促进结合水的释放，促进结合水向自由水的转变，并提高水的整体流动性。此外，压缩系数分析和 X 射线计算机断层扫描（X-CT）显示，PEO 处理可显著提高滤饼孔隙率，有效孔隙率达 56.65%，从而实现卓越的排水性能。PEO 脱水效率的提高源于其在压缩过程中改善滤饼内部透水性的能力，使其机制有别于传统的絮凝（PAM）和混凝（PAC）方法。这项工作凸显了 PEO 作为固体废物管理中食物垃圾消化液处理的高效解决方案的潜力，其耐盐性能进一步扩展了其在高盐度废物流中的适用性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Water Research 环境科学-工程：环境

CiteScore

20.80

自引率

9.40%

发文量

1307

审稿时长

38 days

期刊介绍： Water Research, along with its open access companion journal Water Research X, serves as a platform for publishing original research papers covering various aspects of the science and technology related to the anthropogenic water cycle, water quality, and its management worldwide. The audience targeted by the journal comprises biologists, chemical engineers, chemists, civil engineers, environmental engineers, limnologists, and microbiologists. The scope of the journal include: •Treatment processes for water and wastewaters (municipal, agricultural, industrial, and on-site treatment), including resource recovery and residuals management; •Urban hydrology including sewer systems, stormwater management, and green infrastructure; •Drinking water treatment and distribution; •Potable and non-potable water reuse; •Sanitation, public health, and risk assessment; •Anaerobic digestion, solid and hazardous waste management, including source characterization and the effects and control of leachates and gaseous emissions; •Contaminants (chemical, microbial, anthropogenic particles such as nanoparticles or microplastics) and related water quality sensing, monitoring, fate, and assessment; •Anthropogenic impacts on inland, tidal, coastal and urban waters, focusing on surface and ground waters, and point and non-point sources of pollution; •Environmental restoration, linked to surface water, groundwater and groundwater remediation; •Analysis of the interfaces between sediments and water, and between water and atmosphere, focusing specifically on anthropogenic impacts; •Mathematical modelling, systems analysis, machine learning, and beneficial use of big data related to the anthropogenic water cycle; •Socio-economic, policy, and regulations studies.