Prediction of Methane Generation of Ozone-Treated Sludge from a Wastewater Treatment Plant

Prior to anaerobic digestion of waste activated sludge (WAS), the pre-treatment of sludge including ozonation is utilized to enhance the rate of methane generation and turn it to feasible bio-resource energy. Biochemical methanogenic potential (BMP) test is a common tool to estimate the biodegradability of raw and ozonated WAS, although, it is a time consuming test requiring expensive gas analysis. The objective of this research is to recognize key parameters essential to predict biodegradability of WAS and create a valid Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) for estimating sludge biodegradability. The results reflect that ANN is an effective estimation tool.