Influences of K+, Ca2+, and Al3+ on electrokinetic process and conductive mechanism of sludge electro-dewatering.

In the process of sludge electro-dewatering (EDW), ions migration accompanied has significant influences on the dewatering efficiency. However, the effects of ions on sludge electrochemical properties and the roles in EDW are still not well understood. In this paper, influences of K+, Ca2+, and Al3+ on the mechanical dewatering and EDW process were investigated, and the mechanisms of EDW were analyzed from electrokinetic phenomena and electric conduction model. The results showed that the increase of cationic valence improved sludge mechanical dewatering but deteriorated EDW performance. The spatially distributed voltage used for ionic electromigration indicated that the lagged migration of divalent cation Ca2+ consumed more energy and reduced the dewatering rate in the later stage of EDW compared to that of monovalent cation K+. And trivalent cation Al3+ migrated less and took less water out, while it made the electrochemical reaction of EDW system easier to carry out. The decrease of the absolute zeta potential value of K+, Ca2+, and Al3+ also revealed the degeneration of dewaterability limit. An electric conduction model of partially water-saturated state porous media related to geometric factors was used and clarified the weight variation of continuous phase conductivity and surface conductivity during EDW. The results showed that the conductivity of Al-sludge was more affected by geometric factors and resulted in worse dewatering performance. This study provided a theoretical guidance for understanding the ions behavior affecting the dewatering efficiency and energy consumption of EDW.

Enhancement of sludge electro-dewaterability during biological conditioning.

Electro-dewatering (EDW) is considered as one of the most promising dewatering technologies due to saving power consumption. In this study, the potential effects of anaerobic biological conditioning (BC) on sludge EDW treatments was investigated. The results showed that without any additives BC pretreatment of sludge enhanced EDW dewaterability and energy efficiency. At 35 °C BC for 3 days, the dry solids (DS) of sludge dewaterability limit could increase up to 49%, which corresponded to an increase of 13% of DS in dewatered sludge cake without BC pretreatment, and the dewatering time was shortened by 22%. There was an economic advantage saving in energy consumption of around 49.5% in the case of BC-EDW when the DS of sludge was up to 38%. Then, the mechanism of BC to improve EDW performance was studied. The principal component regression (PCR) analysis showed that the DS content of dewaterability limit mainly depended on the degradation of organic matter and the change of conductivity in sludge. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), zeta potential and bound water in sludge were also determined in an attempt to explain the observed changes in sludge BC-EDW. It was indicated that the increase of negatively charged hydroxyl groups on the surface of sludge particles resulted in an increase of the absolute value of the zeta potential and significantly promoted EDW. The tightly bound EPS (TB-EPS) decreased and it loosened the bond between water or metal cations and sludge particles, and the bound water was also found to be released into free water in sludge during BC.

Electro-dewatering pretreatment of sludge to improve the bio-drying process.

In this study, the feasibility of electro-dewatering (EDW) as a pretreatment of the subsequent bio-drying process (EB process) was investigated from the point of view of the influence of EDW on the microbial biodegradability of sludge. The results showed that suitable EDW pretreatment was beneficial for microbial growth in the sludge cake, and in the subsequent bio-drying process it increased the metabolic activity of microorganisms. However, electric field strength impacted microbial activity and soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) of the sludge. As the applied electric field strength increased from 20 to 60 V cm-1, the microbial activity of sludge decreased gradually but SCOD of sludge increased. The specific oxygen uptake rate (SOUR) at electric field strength of 20 V cm-1 was 8.7% higher than that of raw sludge. EDW pretreatment accelerated the drying rate of bio-drying process, and the final water content of sludge (44%) was 6.3% lower than that of non-pretreated sludge. It was observed that in the bio-drying process with an EDW pretreatment, the first peak temperature of the sludge pile was 58.7 °C at 36 h and the second peak temperature was 48.7 °C at 56 h, whereas that of the non-pretreated sludge was only 46.5 °C at 42 h and 40.3 °C at 62 h, respectively. The EDW sludge incorporating straw as a bulking agent showed promising results during bio-drying. In addition, EDW pretreatment of sludge to improve the bio-drying process showed lower energy consumption and cost.

Biodegradation of volatile solids and water mass balance of bio-drying sewage sludge after electro-dewatering pretreatment.

Using pressurized electro-osmotic dewatering (PEOD) as the pretreatment process for sewage sludge (SS) bio-drying can improve the dewatering performance, but the kinetics of volatile solids biodegradation and the water mass balance are still unknown. These processes were first investigated in this study. Experiments were conducted with three different initial materials, which were composed of SS, bio-dried product and SS dewatered by PEOD (EDSS) as different mass ratios. Six kinetic models and a nonlinear regression method were used to estimate the kinetic parameters, and the models were analyzed using four statistical indicators. Satisfactory fitting of the proposed kinetic model to the experimental data was achieved. Through the water mass balance, the results showed that EDSS had the best dewatering performance for bio-drying. EDSS provided the most appropriate conditions for the bio-drying process; the highest correlation coefficient was 0.9291 and the total water removal rate was 51.13% in the bio-drying of all EDSS.

Sewage sludge drying method combining pressurized electro-osmotic dewatering with subsequent bio-drying.

In this study, pressurized electro-osmotic dewatering (PEOD) as a pretreatment process, instead of the conventional practice of adding bulking agents, for sewage sludge bio-drying was proposed. Initially, various parameters were optimized for obtaining dewatered sewage sludge (DSS), treated by an efficient, quick, and energy-saving PEOD process. The results show that the moisture content (MC) of sewage sludge could decrease from 83.41% to 60.0% within 7.5 min in the optimum conditions of the PEOD process. Subsequently, two DSS bio-drying tests were carried out to investigate the effects of inoculation. The highest temperature (68.1 °C) was obtained for T2 (inoculation), which was 3.6 °C higher than that for T1 (non- inoculation). The MC accumulative removal rate for T1 (41.49%) was slightly less than that for T2 (44.60%). Lastly, the volatile solid degradation dynamics model parameters were measured. The degradation rate constants (k) for T1 and T2 were 0.00501 and 0.00498, respectively.