Treatment of deicing agents and performance evaluation of biofeed activator in anaerobic digester

Anaerobic digestion of sludge is one of the oldest and widely used stabilization processes. It is very efficient for treating medium to high strength organic wastes. In this study three bench-scale anaerobic digesters were operated in the laboratory. The control reactor was fed with raw sludge, the biofeed reactor was dosed with raw sludge mixed with biofeed activator, and the DI/AI reactor was fed with a mixture of raw sludge and deicing and anti-icing agents. The research data showed that DI/AI agents can be treated effectively in anaerobic digesters. However the dosing of the DI/AI agents should be gradually increased. In this investigation the COD contribution by DI/AI agent was gradually increased by step feed from 5% to 60%, while COD contributed by the raw sludge was decreased from 95% to 40%. All proportions of DI/AI agent and raw sludge were treated successfully. Upto 60% COD contributed by the DI/AI agent was considered maximum blend for normal operation in a full-scale digester. There was no significant difference in gas composition of DI/AI reactor as compared to that of the Control reactor.;The biofeed activator (Bio-10) evaluated in this investigation did not perform well. Neither gas generation nor organic stabilization rate increased by addition of biofeed activator. There was no significant difference in the biological kinetic coefficients and the theoretical gas generation rate of the biofeed reactor in comparison to that of the control reactor.