Co-digestion of cultivated microalgae and sewage sludge from municipal waste water treatment

One way to meet the increased demand for biogas in the society is to use microalgae as substrate. These algae would be cultivated in a treatment step of photobioreactors for reject water from sludge dewatering facilities. In the present study, a co-digestion experiment was established where sludge from a municipal wastewater treatment plant was fermented with harvested microalgae cultivated in lake water from lake Mälaren. The experiment was carried out as a BMP-test (Biochemical Methane Potential) under mesophilic condition (37°C) with fermentation bottles, where 0, 12, 25 and 37%, of the sludge was replaced with harvested microalgae. The results showed that the biogas production was improved with 12% for the bottles with 12% microalgae compared with the bottles with only sludge as a substrate. In the bottles with 25% and 37% microalgaes the gas production was slightly reduced compared with the bottles where only sludge was used