The enhancement of anaerobic biodegradability of waste activated sludge by surfactant mediated biological pretreatment

• 0.02 g/g SS of sodium dodecyl sulfate solubilized flocs efficiently.
• Surfactant mediated bacterial pretreatment was a new and novel approach.
• Surfactant mediated biological pretreatment enhances cell lysis.
• Kinetic parameters confers the efficient sludge degradation rate.
• Surfactant mediated bio pretreatment enhances biogas yield to 0.467 L/(g VS).

In this study, the role of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was explored for the removal of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) from waste activated sludge (WAS) followed by enzymatic bacterial pretreatment, which enhanced the subsequent anaerobic biodegradability. EPS was removed with 0.02 g/g SS of SDS. In the results of pretreatment, the suspended solids reduction and chemical oxygen demand solubilization were found to be 25.7% and 19.79% for deflocculated and bacterially pretreated sludge, whereas they were found to be 15.7% and 11% for flocculated sludge (without EPS removal and bacterially pretreated) and 7.85% and 6% for control sludge (raw sludge), respectively. Upon examining the anaerobic biodegradability, the biogas yield potential of deflocculated and bacterially pretreated, flocculated, deflocculated alone, and control sludges were found to be 0.467 L/(g VS), 0.355 L/(g VS), 0.315 L/(g VS), and 0.212 L/(g VS), respectively. Thus, the deflocculation and bacterial pretreatment improved the anaerobic biodegradability efficiently.