• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.1119-1125
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• 2010

Most of the sludge pre-treatment methods to improve the anaerobic digestibility of sludge are not practied in the fields with low economical efficiency. The venturi cavitation system (VCS) adopting hydrodynamic cavitation is simple and requires low energy. This research was conducted to investigate the optimum design and operating conditions of the VCS. The experimental results indicated that the optimum number of venturi in series was three, and the suction mode operation of the pump yielded 1.6 times higher pre-treatment efficiency per unit energy consumption than the discharge mode. The combination of venturies with different throat sizes did not affect the pre-treatment efficiency. Also, the parallel installation of the three in series venture unit yielded 30% higher pre-treatment efficiency per unit energy consumption than the single unit. Under parallel conditions, the solubilization efficiency was 5.6 mg ${\Delta}SCOD/g$ TS/kWh, which is higher than the previously reported value.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.613-619
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• 2018

In this study, various influent sludge pre-treatment methods and the internal recirculation of thickened sludge from effluents using a liquid/solid separation unit were adopted to investigate their effects on the sludge digestion and methane production in a combined mesophilic anaerobic and thermophilic aerobic sludge digestion process. A lab-scale combined sludge digestion process was operated during 5 phases using different feed sludge pre-treatment strategies. In phase 1, the feed sludge was pre-treated with a thermal-alkaline method. In contrast, in phases 2, 3 and 4, the internal recirculation of thickened sludge from the effluent and thermal-alkaline, thermal, and alkaline pre-treatment (7 days) were applied to the combined process. In phase 5, the raw sludge without any pre-treatment was used to the combined process. With the feed sludge pre-treatment and internal recirculation, the experimental results indicated that the volatile suspended solid (VSS) removal was drastically increased from phases 1 to 4. Also, the methane production rate with the thermal-alkaline pre-treatment and internal recirculation was significantly improved, showing an increment to 285 mL/L/day in phase 2. Meanwhile, the VSS removal and methane production in phase 5 were greatly decreased when the raw sludge without any pre-treatment was applied to the combined process. Considering all together, it was concluded that the combined process with the thickened sludge recirculation and thermal-alkaline pre-treatment can be successfully employed for the highly efficient sewage sludge reduction and methane gas production.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.96-102
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• 2009

The effect of ultrasonic and alkaline pre-treatments on waste activated sludge (WAS) disintegration was investigated for improved anaerobic digestion. As WAS was treated by either methods, longer capillary suction time (CST) was required due to the break-up of cell walls, and its supernatant demonstrated increase in soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), protein content and turbidity. Ultrasonic process combined with alkaline pre-treatment demonstrated higher SCOD and protein content in the supernatant as compared with ultrasonic pre-treatment only. However, the degree of disintegration (DDCOD) of WAS decreased with increasing solid concentration as both WAS disintegration methods employed simultaneously.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.27-40
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• 2022

In this study, the anaerobic digestion potential and thermo-chemical pre-treatment were evaluated for efficient anaerobic co-digestion of dewatered sludge(DS) and food waste(FW). As a result, the degradable organic matter concentration and methane yield of FW were evaluated to 2.2 and 1.3 times higher than that of DS, respectively. In order to increase the amount of biogas production, it was determined that it is desirable to increase the mixing ratio of FW. The efficiency of thermo-chemical pre-treatment was evaluated for the reaction temperature, NaOH concentration, reaction time and mixture ratio. As a result of evaluation through pre-treatment efficiency and dehydration capacity, the optimum pre-treatment conditions were evaluated as follows: reaction temperature 140℃, NaOH concentration 60 meq/L, reaction time 60 min, mixture ratio 1:5(DS:FW). The gas production rate and methane yield increased 1.6 and 1.5 times, respectively, compared to before and after applying the optimum pre-treatment. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the mixing ratio of food waste for efficient anaerobic co-digestion of DS and FW. and it is necessary to increase the solubilization efficiency of waste by application of pre-treatment.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.43-52
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• 2013

In this study, various influent sludge pre-treatment methods were adopted to investigate their effects on the sludge digestion and methane production in combined mesophilic anaerobic and thermophilic aerobic sludge digestion process. A lab-scale sewage sludge digestion process was operated during 4 phases using different feed sludge pre-treatment strategies. In phase 1, feed sludge was supplied without any pre-treatment. In contrast, in phases 2, 3 and 4, thermal, thermal-alkaline and long time alkaline treatment (7 days) were applied to influent sludge, respectively. With sludge pre-treatment, TCOD removal was drastically increased from 44% to 76% from phases 1 to 4, respectively. Also, pre-treatment of feed sludge significantly improved the methane production rate of MAD, showing an increment from 101 to 165-256mL/L/day. Meanwhile, TCOD removal and methane production at phase 4 were not increased, compared to those at phase 3. Based on the experimental results, it was concluded that pre-treatment of feed sludge significantly increases the efficiency of sludge digestion and thermal-alkaline method was the most effective method among the pre-treatment methods examined.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.53-63
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• 2018

The hydrolysis of organic solid waste, such as sludge, is the rate-limiting step of the anaerobic digestion. The longer rate-limiting step lead to decrease of treatment efficiency and increase hydraulic retention time and anaerobic digester. Therefore, the pre-treatment has been applied for accelerating the hydrolysis step. This study was investigated the effects of pre-treatment of waste activated sludge using ultrasonic and alkaline integrated treatment simultaneously. The results showed the cumulative methane production and the methane production rate increased while the lag phase decreased. Therefore ultrasonic and alkaline integrated pre-treatment of waste activated sludge resulted in acceleration of hydrolysis step in anaerobic digestion.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.82-90
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• 2009

Disintegration of sewage sludge (SS) was investigated by batch experiments using mechanical pre-treatment. Mechanical disintegration of SS increased the amount of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), protein and carbohydrate due to the break-up of cell walls. The mechanical disintegration incorporated with alkaline pre-treatment demonstrated higher amount of SCOD compared with mechanical one only. In terms of anaerobic biodegradability, mechanical pretreatment enhanced the anaerobic biodegradation of SS, leading to the methane production improvement. The improvement in BMP for SS treated with mechanical and alkaline-mechanical pre-treatments were 24.1% and 44.5%, respectively. This result suggested that disintegration of SS was effective for improving anaerobic biodegradability.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.90-95
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• 2009

Sludge pre-treatment utilizing cavitation is one of the commercialized methods at present. Cavitation can be generated by two different methods, sonotrode and hydrodynamic principle, and there has been no direct comparison between the two methods. In this study, solubilization efficiency, changes in sludge size distribution, and the methane production potential after pre-treatment by the two methods were compared. The maximum solubilization efficiency per unit energy input with the two methods was similar, and was 302 mg ${\Delta}SCOD/g$ TS at the energy input of 0.18 kWh/L. Break-up of sludge flocs were dominant during the early period of pre-treatment, while cell disintegration continued through the pre-treatment with the increase in the number of particles with less than 1 ${\mu}m$. BMP test results indicated that the methane potential increased up to 24.3% without differences between the two pre-treatments, and the increase in methane potential did not proportional to energy input. Although the energy efficiency of the two methods was quite similar, hydrodynamic methods might be a better choice for field application considering the operation and maintenance cost, and its potential improvement in energy efficiency.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.103-109
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• 2010

Anaerobic digestion has been widely used for the treatment of sludge, which is generated from the municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, for its volume reduction and methane production. Many researches on sludge pre-treatment have been carried out in order to enhance the performance of anaerobic digestion by increasing the hydrolysis of sludge which is the rate limiting step of anaerobic digestion. In this study, the effect of pre-treatment on sludge hydrolysis(solubilization), methane production and sludge reduction by anaerobic digestion after thermal, ultrasonic, and thermal-alkali sludge treatment were compared. Thermal-alkali treatment showed 67 and 70% solubilization with municipal and industrial wastewater sludge, respectively, while ultrasonic treatment and thermal treatment gave similar solubilization efficiency of 40% or more. Methane content of the anaerobic digestion gas reached 45~70% and pretreated sludge gave higher methane content than the control sludge. Methane production of thermal, ultrasonic, and thermal-alkali pre-treatment gave 2.6, 2.7, 3.5 times of municipal control sludge and 3.5, 4.1, 4.2 times of industrial control sludge, respectively. Sludge reduction of pre-treated sludge after anaerobic digestion gave 5~19% point higher than that of control sludge, and thermal-alkali treatment showed higher reduction efficiency than thermal and ultrasonic treatment. The results proved that pre-treatment contributed significantly not only for the methane production but also for the cost reduction of sludge treatment and disposal, and thermal-alkali treatment gave the best performance for the sludge treatment.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2015

Alpha spectrometry is typically used for the assessment of uranium particle concentrations and its accuracy can be directly related to the accuracy in which the radiochemical pre-treatment is conducted. Ashing and alkali fusion methods are typically used but the ashing method requires longer analysis time and the alkali fusion method is extremely costly. Therefore, a new pre-treatment method using ultrasonic cleaning was developed and its experimental result was compared against the two conventional methods in terms of pre-treatment time, convenience, cost, and recovery rate of a target material. The results that were obtained by the conventional methods(ashing and alkali fusion) and the new method were compared. Consequently, even though the shorter pre-treatment time was required, the new technique showed almost same recovery rate comparing with two conventional methods. The new method was also featured by its relatively lower cost and a simpler process than two conventional methods.