The impact of ammonia nitrogen concentration and zeolite addition on the specific methanogenic activity of granular and flocculent anaerobic sludges

Abstract

This work presents the effect of ammonia nitrogen concentration and zeolite addition on the specific methanogenic activity (SMA) of different anaerobic sludges with various physical structures (granular and flocculent), operating in batch conditions. Piggery, malting production and urban sludges derived from full-scale anaerobic reactors were tested in the experiment as the source of inoculum in batch digesters. It was found that piggery sludge was the most affected by the increase of ammonia nitrogen concentration while malting producing and municipal sludges were less affected. In general, the addition of zeolite at doses in the range of 0.01-0.1 g/g VSS reduced the inhibitory effect of N-NH(4)(+) for piggery sludge (P.S.). For this sludge, the propionic:acetic ratio increased when the concentration of N-NH(4)(+) increased, indicating that methanogenesis was affected. Finally, a study of the microbial population involved in this study for P.S. by using 16S rRNA based molecular techniques revealed a presence of microorganisms following the order: Methanococcaceae > Methanosarcina > Methanosaeta.