If you are considering anaerobic digestion, you can adopt biomethanation tests to determine the biometanation potential of sludge.

Thank you, Adriana. Could I make this test with the waste sludge from my pilot plant ( It has a solid concentration of less than 6gTSS/l)? Perhaps I could make some other test relating to stages before digestion. Anyway, I would thank also some reference as starting point to develod the method.

Brunetti et al. (1988) Environmental Technology Letters, Vol. 9(8), pp. 753-762

Elbeshbishy et al. (2012) Bioresource Technology, Vol. 110, pp. 18-25

The important parameter is the ratio between the COD (or TSS) of the substrate you are adding and the one of the inoculum: i.e., you can thicken your sludge or dilute your inoculum to the required concentration. Of course, if the sludge is too diluted it could be difficult to have enough biogas to be measured.

soluble COD is a very accurate characterization parameter for most sludges, but you also need to consider increasing the TSS or VSS for a minimum sludge residence time and (solids loading into the reactors.

If you are checking the aerobic digestion, the first test is the COD for a defined time frame. For the real measurement of biodegradability of the sludge a labaratory sewage plant or a sapromate is the best choise.

Thank you Andres and Ingo.

Integrated BioChem has been testing the Managed Ecosystem Fermentation process on the sewer cake produced by a waste water plant. We have seen a significant reduction in volume as well as the production of industrial chemicals. Our testing has shown the production of volatile fatty acids as well as feedstock for biodiesel. The question we are currently getting ready to test is whether the residue can be reused flocculating material.

Regarding behaviour during dewatering you may use simple determination of sludge volume index, centrifuge test or test of filterability.