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Abstract
Excess wastewater sludge collected from the recycling stream of an activated sludge
process is biomass that contains large quantities of polysaccharides and proteins.
However, relevant literature indicates that the bio-conversion of wastewater sludge
to hydrogen is limited and therefore not economically feasible. This work examined
the anaerobic digestion of wastewater sludge using a clostridium strain isolated from
the sludge as inoculum. A much higher hydrogen yield than presented in the literature
was obtained. Also, the effects of five pre-treatments-ultrasonication, acidification,
sterilization, freezing/thawing and adding methanogenic inhibitor-on the production
of hydrogen were examined. Freezing and thawing and sterilization increased the specific
hydrogen yield by 1.5-2.5 times to that of untreated sludge, while adding an inhibitor
and ultrasonication reduced the hydrogen yield.