Reilly, Matthew, Cooley, Andrew P., Richardson, Brittany et al. (2 more authors) (2021) Electrocoagulation of food waste digestate and the suitability of recovered solids for application to agricultural land. Journal of Water Process Engineering. 102121. ISSN 2214-7144
Abstract
Digestates from anaerobic digestion (AD) of food waste contain fertiliser nutrients (such as P and N) which are valuable for agricultural purposes and can be environmentally hazardous if disposal is uncontrolled. Here, we applied electrocoagulation (EC) for treatment of digestates, to separate liquids and nutrient-rich solids. Coagulant-dosing electrocoagulation (CDEC) was used to compare Al and steel anodes for treatment of digestate from AD fermenters fed a controlled diet representative of food waste. When applying metal dosing concentrations of 0–4.66 mM, Fe was found to be up to 29.8 % superior to Al in terms of aiding removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD). To mitigate plate fouling, the digestate was diluted to 0.25 and 0.1 concentrations to enable successful treatment by continuous-flow electrocoagulation (CFEC). The highest recovery of soluble P per Fe added by CFEC was 22.4 mg-P g-Fe−1. This was achieved when using 2.33 mM Fe to treat a 0.25 dilution of digestate. In comparison to a control, these optimal conditions also caused a reduction of 4.5 mg L−1 (or 87.7 %) of soluble P and the removal of 254 mg L−1 (33.2 %) of COD in the filtrate. The NH4+ concentration in filtrate was not influenced by EC treatment. Analyses of a range of known toxic elements (Cu, Ni, Zn, As, Cd, Cr, Mo and Pb) indicates that the solids recovered by CFEC could be suitable for application to land.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Funding Information: The authors would like to acknowledge research grant funding provided by the EPSRC for the Redivivus project (grant code: EP/M007359/1 ). We would also like to thank Elentec Ltd. for contributing staff and equipment, and Michael A. Cooper for his assistance. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier Ltd |
Keywords: | Anaerobic digestion,Electrocoagulation,Nitrogen,Nutrient recovery,Phosphorous |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 22 Jul 2022 09:20 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jan 2025 00:29 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwpe.2021.102121 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jwpe.2021.102121 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:189326 |
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Filename: MREIlLY_2021_electrocoagulation_paper.docx
Description: MREIlLY 2021 electrocoagulation paper
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 2.5