Enhancement of anaerobic digestive efficiency by the use of exchange resin to remove cations in sewage sludge

It is urgent to accelerate the hydrolysis of the sludge particles and improve its biodegradability. This study utilized cation-exchange resin (CER) to adsorb divalent cations in the supernatant of activated sludge with the purpose of making the sludge floc disintegrated.

The results showed that the biopolymers incorporated in the tightly bound extracellular polymeric substances can be released to the bulk using CER to remove cations. However, the lack of essential elements led to a much lower methane yield of treated sludge than that of activated sludge. The treated sludge got a higher methane production rate constants after added Fe 2+ .