• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.35-45
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• 2017

In order to improve the anaerobic digestion efficiency of the sewage sludge, the methane potential of the hydrolysate generated from the hydro-thermal reaction at 170, 180, 190, 200, 210, $220^{\circ}C$ was analyzed and the constitutional characteristics of the organic materials were estimated by dividing organic materials of hydro-thermal hydrolysate into easily biodegradable, decomposition resistant, and non-biodegradable organic materials applying the parallel first order kinetics model. The ultimate methane potential of sewage sludge hydro-thermal hydrolysate increased to 0.39, 0.39, 0.40, 0.44, 0.45, and $0.46Nm^3/kg-VS_{added}$ as hydro-thermal reaction temperature increased from 170, 180, 190, 200, 210, $220^{\circ}C$. It has been shown that the organic matter of sewage sludge is solubilized to increase the content of biodegradable organic material($VS_B$). The easily degradable organic matter($VS_e$) content was highest at hydro-thermal reaction temperature of 200 and $210^{\circ}C$, and optimum hydro-thermal reaction temperature for organic matter solubilization of sewage sludge was in the range of $200{\sim}210^{\circ}C$. In addition, the amount of biodegradable organic material($VS_B$) and easily biodegradable organic matter ($VS_e$) in the hydrolysate of sewage sludge was the highest at hydro-thermal reaction temperature of $200^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2023

Most of the sewage sludge is organic waste containing a large amount of organic substances decomposable by microorganisms by biological treatment. As for existing sewage sludge treatment methods, reduction and fuel conversion are being carried out using technologies such as drying, incineration, torrefaction, carbonization. However, the disadvantage of high energy consumption has been pointed out as latent heat of 539 kcal/kg is consumed based on drying. Therefore, in this study, we intend to produce solid fuel through hydrothermal carbonization(HTC), which is a thermochemical treatment. To evaluate the value of solid fuel, the characteristics of carbonization and fuel ratio were analyzed. As a result, as the hydrothermal carbonization reaction temperature increased, the lower heating value also increased by about 500 kcal/kg due to the increase in the degree of carbonization. H/C, O/C, ratio showed a decreasing trend from 1.78, 0.46 to 1.57, 0.32. When the ratio of ash to combustible content (fixed carbon + volatile) of dry sludge was 0.25 or more, it was derived that the degree of carbonization and calorific value did not increase even when hydrothermal carbonization was performed.

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.74-80
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• 2019

Thermochemical treatment of sewage sludge is an energy-intensive process due to its high moisture content. To save the energy consumed during the process, the hydrothermal carbonization process for sewage sludge can be used to convert sewage sludge into clean solid fuel without pre-drying. This study is aimed to investigate co-firing characteristics of the hydrothermally carbonated sewage sludge (HCS) to a pulverized coal combustion system. The purpose of the measurement is to measure the pollutants produced during co-firing and combustion efficiency. The combustion system used in this study is a furnace with a down-firing swirl burner of a $80kW_{th}$ thermal input. Two sub-bituminous coals were used as a main fuel, and co-firing ratio of the sewage sludge was varied from 0% to 10% in a thermal basis. Experimental results show that $NO_x$ is 400 ~ 600 ppm, $SO_x$ is 600 ~ 700 ppm, and CO is less than 100 ppm. Experimental results show that stable combustion was achieved for high co-firing ratio of the HCS. Emission of $NO_x$ and $SO_x$ was decreased for higher co-firing ratio in spite of the higher nitrogen contents in the HCS. In addition, it was found that the pollutant emission is affected significantly by composition of the main fuel, regardless of the co-firing ratios.

• Clean Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.323-331
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• 2018

The results of an experimental investigation on the co-firing characteristics and slagging behavior of dried and hydrothermal carbonization sewage sludge, sub-bituminous coal, and wood pellet in a fluidized bed were presented. Combustion tests were conducted in a lab-scale bubbling fluidized bed system at the uniform fuel-air equivalence ratio, air flow rate, and initial bed temperature to measure bed temperature distribution and combustion gas composition. 4 different fuel blending cases were prepared by mixing sewage sludge fuels with coal and wood pellet with the ratio of 50 : 50 by the heating value. $NO_x$ was mostly NO than $NO_2$ and measured in the range of 400 to 600 ppm in all cases. $SO_2$ was considered to be affected mostly by the sulfur content of the sewage sludge fuels. The cases of hydrothermal carbonization sewage sludge mixture showed slightly less $SO_2$ emission but higher fuel-N conversion than the dried sewage sludge mixing cases. The result of fly ash composition analysis implied that the sewage sludge fuels would increase the possibility of slagging/fouling considering the contents of alkali species, such as Na, K, P. Between the two different sewage sludge fuels, dried sewage sludge fuel was expected to have the more severe impact on slagging/fouling behavior than hydrothermal carbonization sewage sludge fuel.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2017

The technology for hydrothermal reaction of organic waste is one of the promising process to improve energy efficiency of biomass waste recycling system since moisture contents of treated biomass could be reduced at 40% or less than by dehydration processes. For these reasons, many parts of the world are interested in hydrothermal reaction of organic waste. In this paper, drying performances were evaluated with and without hydrothermal reaction of organic wastes which are sewage sludge and food wastes. For the hydrothermal reaction, organic wastes were treated at $200^{\circ}C$ for 1hr. Drying time of treated organic waste by hydrothermal reaction was reduced. In case of food waste drying at $100^{\circ}C$, drying time of treated wasted was reduced more 52.9% than non-treated. Hence, drying performances of sewage sludge and food wastes should be improved by hydrothermal reaction. Drying rates of treated wastes were considerably increased at preheat period of drying characteristic curve as followings; at $80^{\circ}C$ sludge as 148%, $100^{\circ}C$ sewage sludge as 151%, $80^{\circ}C$ food waste as 209%, $100^{\circ}C$ food waste as 366%. It means the surface area of treated wastes could be increased with destruction of cell membrane by hydrothermal reaction. However, the designer and operator of drying process should be careful, since enhanced drying rate cause the extension the decreasing drying period.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.57-63
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• 2015

Recently, Korea's municipal wastewater treatment plants generated amount of wastewater sludge per day. However, ocean dumping of sewage sludge has been prohibited since 2012 by the London dumping convention and protocol and thus removal or treatment of wastewater sludge from field sites is an important issue on the ground site. The hydrothermal carbonization is one of attractive thermo-chemical method to upgrade sewage sludge to produce solid fuel with benefit method from the use of no chemical catalytic. Hydrothermal carbonization improved that the upgrading fuel properties and increased materials and energy recovery, which is conducted at temperatures ranging from 200 to $350^{\circ}C$ with a reaction time of 30 min. Hydrothermal carbonization increased the heating value though the increase of the carbon and fixed carbon content of solid fuel due to dehydration and decarboxylation reaction. Therefore, after the hydrothermal carbonization, the H/C and O/C ratios decreased because of the chemical conversion. Energy retention efficiency suggest that the optimum temperature of hydrothermal carbonization to produce more energy-rich solid fuel is approximately $200^{\circ}C$.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.128-136
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• 2016

BACKGROUND: Hydrothermal carbonization reaction is the thermo-chemical energy conversion technology for producing the solid fuel of high carbon density from organic wastes. The hydrothermal carbonization reaction is accompanied by the thermal hydrolysis reaction which converse particulate organic matters to soluble forms (hydro-thermal hydrolysate). Recently, hydrothermal carbonization is adopted as a pre-treatment technology to improve anaerobic digestion efficiency. This research was carried out to assess the effects of hydro-thermal reaction temperature on the methane potential and anaerobic biodegradability in the thermal hydrolysate of organic sludge generating from the wastewater treatment plant of poultry slaughterhouse .METHODS AND RESULTS: Wastewater treatment sludge cake of poultry slaughterhouse was treated in the different hydro-thermal reaction temperature of 170, 180, 190, 200, and 220℃. Theoretical and experimental methane potential for each hydro-thermal hydrolysate were measured. Then, the organic substance fractions of hydro-thermal hydrolysate were characterized by the optimization of the parallel first order kinetics model. The increase of hydro-thermal reaction temperature from 170℃ to 220℃ caused the enhancement of hydrolysis efficiency. And the methane potential showed the maximum value of 0.381 Nm³ kg^-1-VS_added in the hydro-thermal reaction temperature of 190℃. Biodegradable volatile solid(VSB) content have accounted for 66.41% in 170℃, 72.70% in 180℃, 79.78% in 190℃, 67.05% in 200℃, and 70.31% in 220℃, respectively. The persistent VS content increased with hydro-thermal reaction temperature, which occupied 0.18% for 170℃, 2.96% for 180℃, 6.32% for 190℃, 17.52% for 200℃, and 20.55% for 220℃.CONCLUSION: Biodegradable volatile solid showed the highest amount in the hydro-thermal reaction temperature of 190℃, and then, the optimum hydro-thermal reaction temperature for organic sludge was assessed as 190℃ in the aspect of the methane production. The rise of hydro-thermal reaction temperature caused increase of persistent organic matter content.