Abstract
Industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants produce large amounts of sludge cakes for final disposal. This problem is an inevitable drawback inherent to the activated sludge process. Both the reduction of the amount of sludge produced and improvement of its dewaterability are presently very important issue also in Korea. So many pre-treatment processes have been developed in order to improve sludge dewatering efficiency. In this study the effects of hydrogen peroxide and paper sludge mixing processes were considered as reasonable alternatives to enhance sludge dewaterability. The CST of sludge was significantly decreased, and dewaterability improved by hydrogen peroxide oxidation treatment. The optimum dosage of hydrogen peroxide was proved to be 10mg/g-TS (when TS of sludge was 2%) with the conditions of pH 4 and only 1~2 minutes of reaction time. The mixing of paper sludge with sewage sludge was turned out to be very effective in reduction of sludge cake; 30% of sludge cake reduction was accomplished. Optimum mixing ratio of paper sludge was about 30%(v/v). This process also could save 25% of polymer to be required. These two alternatives are somewhat realistic, but it was concluded that paper sludge mixing process will be the best choice.
