Heat-alkaline treatment of excess sludge and the potential use of hydrolysate as nitrogen source for microbial lipid production

Abstract:

To recover and use protein resources in excess sludge and decrease the cost of microbial lipid production, heat-alkaline was used to treat the sludge, and the hydrolysate was preliminarily used as nitrogen source to cultivate Rhodosporidium toruloides AS 2.1389 for lipid accumulation. Firstly, we treated the excess sludge under different alkaline conditions (pH 10, pH 12, pH 13) within the reaction time of 5–10 h to investigate the effect of nitrogen source release. Secondly, we used the sludge hydolysate to culture R. toruloides AS, and test the effect on cell growth. Results showed that treatment of excess sludge at pH 13 for 5 h was the most effective for nitrogen release. However, the hydrolysate obtained at pH 10 (5 h) was the most suitable for culturing R. toruloides AS, and under this condition, the inner-cellular lipid content could reach 35% of the total biomass weight.