Digital Commons Network^™

The State Of Technologies And Research For Energy Recovery From Municipal Wastewater Sludge And Biosolids, Zhongzhe Liu, Brooke Mayer, Kaushik Venkiteshwaran, Saba Seyedi, Arun S.K. Raju, Daniel Zitomer, Patrick J. Mcnamara

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Wastewater resource recovery facilities produce wastewater solids that offer potential for energy recovery. This opinion article provides a perspective on state-of-the-art technologies to recover energy from sludge (unstabilized wastewater residual solids) and biosolids (stabilized wastewater solids meeting criteria for application on land). The production of biodiesel fuel is an emerging technology for energy recovery from sludge, whereas advancements in pretreatment technologies have improved energy recovery from anaerobic digestion of sludge. Incineration is an established technology to recover energy from sludge or biosolids. Gasification, and to a greater extent, pyrolysis are emerging technologies well-suited for energy recovery from biosolids. While gasification …