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Enhanced in situ biodegradation of microplastics in sewage sludge using hyperthermophilic composting technology
Summary
Hyperthermophilic composting technology (operating above 70°C) was tested for its ability to biodegrade microplastics in sewage sludge in situ, with results showing significant reduction in microplastic abundance compared to conventional composting. This enhanced treatment approach could reduce the microplastic load delivered to agricultural soils when biosolids are land-applied.
Land spreading of sewage sludge is a major source of environmental microplastics (MPs) contamination. However, conventional sludge treatments are inefficient at removing sludge-based MPs. Herein, hyperthermophilic composting (hTC) technology is proposed and demonstrated in full-scale (200 t) for in situ biodegradation of sludge-based MPs. After 45 days of hTC treatment, 43.7% of the MPs was removed from the sewage sludge, which is the highest value ever reported for MPs biodegradation. The underlying mechanisms of MPs removal were investigated in lab-scale polystyrene-microplastics (PS-MPs) biodegradation experiments. The hTC inoculum degraded 7.3% of the PS-MPs at 70 °C in 56 days, which was about 6.6 times higher than that of the conventional thermophilic composting (cTC) inoculum at 40 °C. Analyses of the molecular weight and physicochemical properties of the PS-MPs residuals indicated that hyperthermophilic bacteria in hTC accelerated PS-MPs biodegradation through excellent bio-oxidation performance. High-throughput sequencing suggested that Thermus, Bacillus, and Geobacillus were the dominant bacteria responsible for the highly efficient biodegradation during hTC. These results reveal the critical role of hyperthermophilic bacteria in MPs biodegradation during hTC, highlighting a promising strategy for sludge-based MPs removal from the real environment.