Abstract

Fruit and vegetable waste (FVW) are characterised by high-water content. Solid-liquid separation of FVW by crushing-extrusion physical pre-treatment provides fruit and vegetable wastewater (FVWW), and then for anaerobic biological treatment to recover methane, which is considered a cost-effective approach. However, anaerobic treatment of FVWW faces difficulties with low methane productivity and over-accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFAs). In this study, the expanded granular sludge bed (EGSB) reactor was used for the anaerobic treatment of FVWW and the regulatory strategy to alleviate over-acidification was proposed. When the influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration was 10000 mg/L, the hydraulic retention time (HRT) was 2 days, the organic loading rate (OLR) reached 5 g COD/L/d, the maximum methane productivity reached 301.14±2.32 mL/gCOD with a COD removal rate of 96%±2%. Lower VFAs accumulation was observed when decreasing the influent COD concentration to the same OLR compared with extending HRT, resulting in 38.5% higher methane productivity. Decreasing the influent COD concentration not only benefited the enrichment of acetogens and hydrogenotrophic methanogens but also specifically enriched syntrophic bacteria. The enhanced syntrophic acetogenesis and hydrogenotrophic methanogens maybe the main reasons for promoting the degradation of propionate and butyrate and improving the methane productivity.