was imbalance, which easily lead to the accumulation of high concentrations of VFAs.
Consequently, pH value decrease leading to the inhibition on the activity of
methanogenic bacteria, and then a vicious circle leading to the significantly inhibited
methane production. Therefore, we aimed to resolve the rate-limiting factor of methane
conversion process, and then establish effective solutions.
During the anaerobic digestion process, the concersion of polymer organic matter
into methane is a complex process, which required various mutual cooperation among
microorganism in the four-stages anaerobic digestion. In thermodynamics, the anaerobic
oxidation of fatty acids can not be spontaneous (△G'>0) under the normal conditions,
and the process of generating methane was spontaneous, therefore, the anaerobic
oxidation of high concentration VFAs is the rate-limiting step. It reported that activated
carbon and redox mediator——2,6-anthraquinone disulphonate possessed the potential
for accelerating the efficiency of direct electron transfer between species, nevertheless
their effects on the mixed anaerobic digestion system was unclear. Thus, this study
investigated the stimulating influence of activated carbon and AQDS on the anaerobic
methanization system.
This work consists of three parts, 1) to explore the effect of activated carbon
concentration on the degradation of VFAs; 2) to explore the impact of degradation of
low concentrations VFAs by adding AQDS; 3) the effect of activated carbon with
different sizes in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors to treatment high
concentration brewery wastewater. The first two parts cmpared four comparative
groups, named 0 g/L GAC、0.5 g/L GAC, 5.0 g/L GAC, 25 g/L GAC respectively; the
third part of the test compared three sets of UASB reactors, named R0, R1, R2, which
was without activated carbon, and with granular activated carbon (10-20 mesh),
powdered activated carbon (80-100 mesh), respectively. The main results are as
follows:
(1) Firstly, in sealed glass bottle, 1.0 g/L of single volatile acids (acetic acid,
propionic acid, butyric acid) were used as single substrate, respectively. Activated
carbon can effectively promote the degradation of volatile acids, and 5.0 g/L activated
carbon concentration was superior to the other concentrations in accelerating the
degradation of VFAs. AQDS can further promote the degradation of VFAs, the
degradation rate and gas production of 5.0 g/L GAC group was the largest than other
groups. The degradation of VFAs was simulated by first order kinetic model, which
results suggested that the activated carbon and AQDS improved the kinetics constant K,
and followed K3> K2> K4> K1 , the K of 0.5 g/L GAC group, 5.0 g/L GAC group, 25
g/L GAC group is 1.5 to 5 times to blank group. △K of with and without AQDS was
different in each group, activated carbon and AQDS can extremely improve the
acceleration effect, there will be both together further accelerating electron transfer
promoting effect.
(2) AMPTS test (Automatic Methane Potential Test System), followed in ascending
gradient (1.0-5.0 g/L) of mixing volatile acids (acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric acid)