Anaerobic Fluidized-Bed Membrane Bioreactor for Treatment of Liquid Fraction of Sludge Digestate: Performance and Agricultural Reuse Analysis

The treatment of sludge digestion liquid is a big challenge in wastewater treatment. If treated as normal wastewater, large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus present in the sludge digestion liquid might be wasted when they could be reused in agricultural irrigation and reduce the consumption of artificial fertilizers. Thus, it is of utmost importance to deliver a simple and feasible strategy to treat sludge digestion liquid for agricultural reuse. In this study, a novel type of anaerobic fluidized bed membrane bioreactor system (US-AnFMBR) was developed by combining an ultrasonic processing unit and biochar in AnFMBR. The improvement of sludge properties, removal of pollutants performance and membrane fouling mitigation were achieved in this novel system. The optimal dose of BC (biochar) was 2.5 g·L−1, and the optimal ultrasonic treatment conditions were 30 min at 26 W. The main contribution of ultrasound was to improve the activity of sludge microorganisms to adsorb and degrade more organic matter present in sewage. The system achieved the removal efficiencies of COD, NH4+-N and PO43−-P up to 89.41%, 49.29% and 54.83%, respectively, and had a better mitigation effect in terms of membrane fouling. On the one hand, the biochar addition for COD removal performance was mainly manifested in membrane rejection performance. On the other hand, the combination of low-cost biochar and AnFMBR can also provide new ideas for the recycling of agricultural waste for biochar production. However, regarding the removal efficiency of NH4+-N and PO43−-P, the US-AnFMBR system promoted the activity of starved sludge to preferentially absorb NH4+-N compared with PO43−-P by statistical analysis. The US-AnFMBR can reduce the viscosity of sludge and release more small molecular substances, thus better mitigating membrane fouling. Long-term operation performance also revealed the excellent stability of the sludge digestion liquid treatment. The US-AnFMBR system achieves the recovery of nitrogen and phosphorus resources for subsequent agricultural recycling, and avoids the eutrophication of water ecosystems. Reclaimed water meets the nutrient requirements of typical crops during the growing season. To a certain extent, carbon emission reductions in agriculture can be achieved.