Performance and mechanisms of citric acid improving biotransformation of waste activated sludge into short-chain fatty acids

Numerous effective chemical strategies have been explored for short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) production from waste activated sludge (WAS), but many technologies have been questioned due to the chemical residues. This study proposed a citric acid (CA) treatment strategy for improving SCFAs production from WAS. The optimum SCFAs yield reached 384.4 mg COD/g VSS with 0.08 g CA/g TSS addition. Meanwhile, CA biodegradation occurred and its contribution to the yield of total SCFAs, especially acetic acid, cannot be ignored. Intensive exploration indicated the sludge decomposition, the biodegradability of fermentation substrates, as well as the abundance of fermenting microorganisms were definitely enhanced in the existence of CA. The optimization of SCFAs production techniques based on this study deserved further study. This study comprehensively revealed the performance and mechanisms of CA enhancing biotransformation of WAS into SCFAs and the findings promotes the research of carbon resource recovery from sludge.

Automated summary

This study proposed a citric acid (CA) treatment strategy for improving short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) production from waste activated sludge (WAS), with the optimum SCFAs yield reaching 384.4 mg COD/g VSS with 0.08 g CA/g TSS addition. The biodegradation of CA contributes to the yield of total SCFAs, especially acetic acid. The presence of CA enhances sludge decomposition, fermentation substrate biodegradability, and the abundance of fermenting microorganisms.