Treatment of municipal sludge by hydrothermal oxidation process with H2O2.

The recent increase in municipal sludge worldwide has led to a great deal of interest in developing an efficient and environmentally friendly sludge treatment method. In the paper, the treatment of municipal sludge by hydrothermal oxidation (HTO) process with H2O2 as the oxidant was proposed. The impacts of HTO temperature and H2O2 mass fraction on the distribution of products, the moisture content, the migration behaviors of the heavy metals (HMs) of the resulted solid products, the concentration of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and NH3-N contained in the resulted aqueous phase products and the pH value were investigated. The results indicated that the sludge reduction was achieved by HTO treatment, the increasing H2O2 mass fraction and HTO temperature can significantly improve the dewatering performance of the sludge. The potential toxicity fraction of Pb and Cd contained in the resulted solid residual increased with the increasing HTO severity and the potential toxicity fraction of solid residues was still lower than that of raw material. Acetic acid was the main VFAs produced from HTO treated sludge, and its concentration reached to the maximum value of 2923.41 mg/L at 230 °C under H2O2 mass fraction of 15%. The change in the pH of the resulted aqueous phase products was caused by the competition between the acidic (VFAs or CO2) or alkaline (NH3-N) substances derived from the sludge during HTO process. The HTO process was expected to be an efficient method for municipal sludge treatment due to its mild conditions and high heavy metal safety.

Volatility and partitioning of Cd and Pb during sewage sludge thermal conversion.

In this paper, the thermal characteristics of sewage sludge and the transformation behavior of Pb and Cd during the thermal conversion process were addressed. The incineration process and pyrolysis process of the sewage sludge were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis. The results indicated that the thermal conversion process of the sewage sludge could be divided into three stages and the presence of oxygen could accelerate the decomposition of the sewage sludge. Furthermore, the effects of thermal conditions on the concentration ratio of Cd and Pb and their species partitioning in the residual char and ash were investigated. For the pyrolysis process, the maximum concentration ratio of Cd reached 41.64% at 500 °C and the lowest one 2.92% at 700 °C. Contrary, the concentration ratio of Pb remained above 93% as the temperature increased. Thus, the suitable temperature for the sewage sludge pyrolysis was below 500 °C. For the incineration process, the incineration temperature had great influence on the concentration ratio of Cd and Pb. When the incineration temperature increased from 700 °C to 900 °C, the concentration ratio of Cd decreased drastically from 99.32% to 10.96%. The maximum concentration ratio for Pb (95.31%) was reached at 800 °C. Besides, the lowest concentration ratio of Cd and Pb were obtained at a residence time of 30 min. The partitioning analyses of the Cd and Pb contained in the ash showed that the residence time had little effect on the partitioning of Cd and Pb, and the residual fractions of Cd and Pb were both above 90%. It was concluded that Cd and Pb were properly stabilized in the ash. Thus, Cd and Pb in the ash were difficult to be released into the environment and to cause secondary pollution.