Characterization of melanoidins in thermal hydrolysis sludge and effects on dewatering performance

Thermal hydrolysis pretreatment (THP) of sludge can form the refractory brown melanoidins due to the occurrence of the Maillard reaction, which adversely involves the subsequent sludge anaerobic digestion (AD) process. However, details of the generation pattern of melanoidins and how they affect the sludge dewaterability remain largely unknown. This work aims to determine an approach to characterize and quantify the melanoidins created by THP of sludge. On this basis, the effect of melanoidins on sludge dewatering performance was revealed by adding synthetic melanoidins to the mixed sludge. Experimental results showed that three-dimensional fluorescence-region integration (3DEEM-FRI) could effectively distinguish melanoidins from other organic substances and achieve semi-quantitative characterization in sludge. The melanoidins significantly deteriorated the sludge dewaterability, and the lowest solids content of the filter cake (TS) was only 17.78% at the addition of 480 mg (g TS)-1, which was a drop of about 20% compared to the control group. The mechanism investigations indicated that the internal structure of sludge becoming particularly complicated and the opportunities for molecules to collide with each other enlarged because of the contribution of melanoidins, resulting in the increment of the sludge apparent viscosity and consistency coefficient (k), a decline of the flow behavior index (n) and a weakening of flowability. Melanoidins could capture massive water molecules and carry negative charges with the decrease of sludge particle size and zeta potential value, which enhanced the electrostatic repulsion between sludge particles and abated the flocculation ability, thus further aggravating the sludge dewatering performance.