كلية الهندسة
Ali Abdul Zahra Ali, a lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering – University of Maysan, published a joint scientific research paper with Turkish scholar Sukru Aslan, under the title: “Improving the Energy Balance Between Microwave Pretreatment and Anaerobic Digestion with Concentrated Bias.”
The research was published in the international journal Bioresources and Bioprocessing, which has an impact factor of 5.1 and is ranked in the first quartile (Q1) within the Scopus and Clarivate databases. The journal is issued by the prestigious publishing house Springer.
Content and Results of the Study
The laboratory study demonstrated that combining the centrifugation process—used to increase the solids content of sludge—with microwave treatment (at 90°C, a heating rate of 2°C/min, and a retention time of 5 minutes) prior to the anaerobic digestion process, resulted in remarkable improvements in energy recovery in the form of methane (CH₄).
The study found that organic solubility doubled significantly, as the concentrations of proteins and dissolved sugars increased by 10 to 22 times, which led to an approximate 22% increase in methane production compared to untreated sludge. Additionally, the dual approach reduced electricity consumption during microwave processing by about one-third, thereby improving the overall energy balance and system efficiency.
The results indicated that the highest methane yield was achieved when using concentrated and pretreated sludge. The Transference model also exhibited high predictive accuracy for gas production compared to other models. These findings highlight a promising pathway toward making sludge treatment more environmentally and economically sustainable, while paving the way for future research aimed at achieving net-positive bioenergy production without dependence on external electrical sources.
🔗 Research Link:
https://bioresourcesbioprocessing.springeropen.com
