Using Focused Pulsed Technology to Remove Siloxane from Municipal Sewage Sludge
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 1
Abstract
Siloxanes, impurities in the biogas produced from anaerobic digestion of wastewater sludges, are transformed to silica dioxide sand during combustion of the biogas, which damages the heat exchanger and engine. Decamethylcyclopenta-siloxane (D5) and octamethylcyclotetra-siloxane (D4) were added to return activated sludge (RAS) and treated using a pulsed-electric field method [focused pulsed (FP)] that makes the sludge solids more readily converted to methane. With an FP treatment intensity () of , the D4, and D5 removal efficiencies were and , respectively. Removals of D4 and D5 increased proportionally with whether was affected by sludge conductivity or FP pulse frequency. FP treatment of activated sludge before methanogenic batch tests lowered the amount of both siloxanes in the produced biogas, and evidence suggests that the siloxanes were biotransformed during the batch tests.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank OpenCEL LLC for their financial support of this research and Rod Caldwell for operation of the FP unit.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 1 • January 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 4, 2012
Accepted: Apr 6, 2015
Published online: Sep 4, 2015
Published in print: Jan 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Feb 4, 2016
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