Biodegradability and change of physical characteristics of particles during anaerobic digestion of domestic sewage

At the high-rate anaerobic treatment of domestic sewage, both biological and physical processes play an important role. Therefore, the anaerobic biodegradability of raw, paper-filtered and membrane-filtered sewage and black water has been investigated in batch experiments. Additionally, the effect of anaerobic digestion on physical characteristics, like particle size, surface tension and zeta-potential, of the present particles is studied. The biodegradability of domestic sewage and black water at 30°C is almost similar (71–74%). Moreover, a high methanogenesis of the colloidal fraction in domestic sewage (86±3%) is achieved, showing that the low removal of colloidal particles in continuous high-rate anaerobic reactors is due to low physical removal rather than biodegradability. The lowest biodegradability is demonstrated for the dissolved fraction (62%). The results show that after anaerobic digestion the average radius of particles with diameter<4.4 and<0.45 μm increased for domestic sewage, while it decreased for black water. Part of the surface-active components in domestic sewage is not biodegraded during anaerobic batch digestion, as indicated by the development of the surface tension. The negative zeta-potential of all particles hardly changes during digestion, showing that colloidal interactions were not affected by anaerobic digestion.