Abstract
Domestic Sewage Treatment Plants are mostly based on biological treatment, in which large amounts of excess sludge are generated and occupy about 40 ~ 60% of the total sewage treatment costs. Several methods for sludge treatment has been so far reported as upgrading biodegradation of sludge; heat treatment, chemical treatment, including thermo-alkali and ozone, mechanical treatment including ultrasonic pulverization. But, it has a limitation in case of reducing the amount of excess sludge which are already producted. In this study, application of excess sludge reduction process using thermophilic aerobic bacteria for activated sludge was examined. The research was carried out two different stage. one for a biological wastewater treatment and the other for a thermophilic aerobic solubilization of the waste sludge. A portion of excess sludge from the wastewater treatment step was into the thermophilic aerobic sludge solubilization reactor, in which the injected sludge was solubilized by thermophilic aerobic bacteria. The solubilized sludge was returned to the aeration tank in the wastewater treatment step for its further degradation. Sludge solubilization reactor was operated at $63{\pm}2^{\circ}C$ with hydraulic retention time(HRT) of 1.5 ~ 1.7 day. Control group was operated with activated sludge process(AS) and experiment group was operated with three conditions(RUN 1, RUN 2, RUN3). RUN 1 was operated with AS without sludge solubilization reactor. RUN 2 were operated with AS with sludge solubilization reactor to examine correlation between sludge circulation ratio and sludge reduction ratio by setting up sludge circulation ratio to 3. RUN 3 was operated with sludge circulation ratio of 3 and MLSS concentration of 1,700~2,000mg/L to examine optimum operation condition. The quantity of excess sludge production was reduced sharply and in operation of RUN 3, sludge The quantity of excess sludge production was reduced sharply and in operation of RUN 3, sludge solubilization ratio and sludge reduction ratio were 53. 7%, 95.2% respectively. After steady state operation, average concentration of TBOD, SBOD, $TCOD_{Cr}$, $SCOD_{Cr}$, TSS, VSS, T-N, T-P of effluent were 4.5, 1.7, 27 .8, 13.8, 8.1, 6.2, 15.1, 1.8mg/L in the control group and were 5.6, 2.0, 28.6, 19.1, 9.7, 7.2, 16.1, 2.0mg/L in the experimental group respectively. They were appropriate to effluent standard of Sewage Treatment Plants.
