The promising resource utilization methods of excess sludge: A review

Energy crisis caused short supply of reliable and affordable energy for our future generations and ourselves, meanwhile more and more stringent laws and regulations were established on excess sludge treatment and disposal, the potential for energy recovery from excess sludge has already attracted much more attentions from researchers domestic and abroad. Resource utilization for excess sludge is the best way to solve sludge treatment and disposal problem, simultaneously create a sustainable energy to fulfill present and future energy requirements and thus reduce our dependence on non-renewable resources. This paper presents the current promising research focuses on excess sludge resource utilization methods, i.e. anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, gasification, microbial fuel cell (MFC), microbial electrolysis cell (MEC).