Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Wastewater Treatment

Dear Colleagues,

Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a natural process carried out by anaerobic microorganisms, which offers many advantages in regard to the production of renewable energy. AD produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas that can also be captured and used for fuel production; therefore, it is a key measure for decreasing greenhouse gases. Typically, AD has been used with wastewater sludge treatment, agricultural manure management and food waste management. For wastewater treatment, AD processes are usually used for treating sludge to produce energy, decreasing its volume and increasing its dewaterability. About half of the sludge is converted into gases, while the remainder is dried and becomes a residual soil-like material. Sludge can also be codigested with other byproducts like agricultural waste (straw, manure), household waste or food waste. In this case, solid AD processes, also called dry anaerobic digestion, can be used. The latter concerns a process for the degradation of high total solid (TS > 15 % w/w) content.

Despite the existence of numerous full-scale industrial solid reactors, many research works are still carried out in AD and are focused on current limitations (such as BMP, which refers to the design of the reactors, codigestion, inhibition, life cycle analysis, stability and resiliency of the process, as well as social acceptance, etc.) in order to develop AD processes.

This Special Issue aims to encourage researchers to find solutions in order to overcome these limitations.

Prof. Dr. Andre Pauss
Prof. Dr. Thierry Ribeiro
Guest Editors

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