4.7 Article

Black liquor increases methane production from excess pulp and paper industry sludge

Journal

CHEMOSPHERE
Volume 280, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130665

Keywords

Sludge; Pulp and paper; Thermochemical; Methane; Black liquor; Pretreatment

Funding

  1. Guangxi Natural Science Foundation [2019GXNSFAA185019]
  2. Foundation of Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education/Shandong Province of China [KF201809]
  3. Startup Research Fund of Guangxi University [XBZ190480]
  4. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Clean Pulp and Papermaking and Pollution Control [ZR201802-7]

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The study found that using black liquor instead of NaOH for the thermo-chemical pretreatment process can increase methane production and reduce treatment costs, making it economically feasible. However, adding black liquor can increase background chemical oxygen demand and volatile fatty acid concentration.
The aim of the study was to use black liquor produced during the soda pulping process in a pulp and paper mill to increase methane production during pulp and paper industry sludge treatment and decrease the treatment cost. The effects of black liquor on sludge solubilization and methane production were assessed and the economic feasibility of the process was evaluated. Black liquor and NaOH were found to be equivalent in the thermo-chemical pretreatment process to solubilize sludge and disintegrate flocs. However, adding black liquor increased the background chemical oxygen demand and volatile fatty acid concentration and increased the amount of methane produced by approximately 7-30%. A start-up delay was emphasized by first-order kinetics model due to black liquor addition while methane production remained stable. Economic assessments of five scenarios were performed. It was found to be economically feasible to use black liquor to replace NaOH for the thermal pretreatment process. The surplus methane generated suggested that co-digestion of sludge and black liquor allows surplus bioenergy to be produced during the thermochemical pretreatment anaerobic digestion process.

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