Abstract
The objective of the research study was to determine whether a sewage sludge conditioning had any impact on sludge dewaterability. As a conditioning agent a water treatment sludge was used, which was mixed with a sewage sludge before a digestion process. The capillary suction time (CST) and the specific filtration resistance (SRF) were the measures used to determine the effects of a water sludge addition on a dewatering process. Based on the CST curves the water sludge dose of 0.3 g total volatile solids (TVS) per 1.0 g TVS of a sewage sludge was selected. Once the water treatment sludge dose was accepted, disintegration of the water treatment sludge was performed and its dewaterability was determined. The studies have shown that sludge dewaterability was much better after its conditioning with a water sludge as well as after disintegration and conditioning, if comparing to sludge with no conditioning. Nevertheless, these findings are of preliminary nature and future studies will be needed to investigate this topic.
Highlights
Dewatering of sludge is a very important stage of the sludge processing
In order to determine the optimum ratio of a water tratment sludge to a sewage sludge, the changes of the capillary suction time (CST) were investigated for the tested sludge, before and after the digestion process
The average CST values for sludge that had not been conditioned with water treatment sludge and was not digested were 150s, and they were 66% lower than the ones after digestion
Summary
Dewatering of sludge is a very important stage of the sludge processing. It reduces both sludge mass and volume, which reduces costs of a further sludge processing, facilitates its transport and allows for its thermal processing. A sewage sludge has a very high water content (92-99.5%), which contributes to high costs of its further processing. It is worth noting that a growing acceptance of a sludge incineration, as the final sewage sludge disposal, stimulates a search for methods that would intensify dewatering processes. Different methods of sludge conditioning are applied during its processing and dewatering. Sludge conditioning modifies a structure and properties of the processed sludge and enables a more efficient removal of water captured within sludge flocks [3].
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