PANGHeliang,WANGYan,DINGJiangbo,et al.Emerging Hydrolysis Methods and Carbon Flow Pathway Thoughts for Residual Sludge Anaerobic Fermentation Processes[J].China Water & Wastewater,2026,42(8):48-56.
Emerging Hydrolysis Methods and Carbon Flow Pathway Thoughts for Residual Sludge Anaerobic Fermentation Processes
China Water & Wastewater[ISSN:1000-4062/CN:12-1073/TU]
volume:
第42卷
Number:
第8期
Page:
48-56
Column:
Date of publication:
2026-04-17
- Keywords:
- residual sludge; anaerobic fermentation; sludge pretreatment; hydrolysis; carbon reduction
- Abstract:
- The activated sludge method has been widely used in municipal wastewater treatment, and the problem of residual sludge disposal has become a significant challenge. To alleviate the pressure of solid waste, researchers have focused on pretreatment hydrolysis technology to enhance the reduction of residual sludge by anaerobic fermentation. In addition, the enhanced cracking of cells and extracellular polymers in the residual sludge could release high-quality carbon sources to replace commercial carbon sources to meet the carbon to nitrogen ratio requirements of the pretreatment stage of wastewater treatment plants. A variety of physical, chemical, biological, and physical-chemical coupling techniques, such as heat treatment, cation exchange treatment, and heat-alkali treatment, have been demonstrated to be effective for residual sludge reduction. However, there was a lack of carbon reduction from the perspective of carbon production and carbon consumption in the enhanced pretreatment process. In this research, the progress of emerging hydrolysis technologies for anaerobic fermentation of residual sludge was summarized from the perspective of carbon flow pathway. It was found that the carbon reduction of various pretreatment methods ranged from 49.51 to 160.22 kgCO2 per ton of sludge, with the alkaline-thermal pretreatment showing the best carbon reduction effect. The carbon production from the conversion of the carbon source produced by the anaerobic fermentation pretreatment to clean electricity exceeded 10.29 kW·h per ton of sludge. The carbon recovered through the residual sludge anaerobic fermentation pretreatment for commercial methanol replacement application produced economic benefits of 131.95-426.93 CNY per ton of sludge. Among these, the cation exchange pretreatment method, which exihites regenerative reusability, achieves economic of 256.58 CNY per ton of sludge.
Last Update:
2026-04-17