Enhancement of anaerobic digestion efficiency of wastewater sludge and olive waste: Synergistic effect of co-digestion and ultrasonic/microwave sludge pre-treatment

This study investigates the effect of ultrasonic and microwave pre-treatment on biogas production from the anaerobic co-digestion of olive pomace and wastewater sludges. It was found that co-digestion of wastewater sludge with olive pomace yielded around 0.21 L CH4/g VSadded, whereas the maximum methane yields from the mono-digestion of olive pomace and un-pretreated wastewater sludges were 0.18 and 0.16 L CH4/g VSadded. In the same way, compared to mono-digestion of these substrates, co-digestion increased methane production by 17-31%. The microwave and ultrasonic pre-treatments applied to sludge samples prior to co-digestion process led to further increase in the methane production by 52% and 24%, respectively, compared to co-digestion with un-pretreated wastewater sludge. The highest biogas and methane yields were obtained from the co-digestion of 30 min microwave pre-treated wastewater sludges and olive pomace to be 0.46 L/g VSadded and 0.32 L CH4/g VSadded, respectively.