• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.166-171
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• 2004

In this study, we introduced enzymatic pretreatment method, together with ozone treatment for sludge digestion. We optimized the amount of enzyme and ozone, respectively for the successful sludge pretreatment. As a result, we found that as more enzyme is used, higher sludge hydrolysis efficiency was obtained. When we treated sludge by ozone ranging from 0.01g $O_3$/g SS to 0.04 g $O_3$/g SS without enzyme treatment, 0.04 g $O_3$/g SS showed the highest increase of SCOD. Meanwhile, when protease was used together with the same ozone dosage ranges, 0.03g $O_3$/g SS ozonation resulted in the highest increase of SCOD. The sludge pretreatment was optimized by controlling the amount of enzyme and ozone.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.84-89
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and improve the pre-treatment facility for foodwaste and sewage sludge mixture treatment. The process of foodwaste pre-treatment consists of storage, classification with crushing, and thickening. The effluent of sewage treatment facility was used as the diluting and washing water. The panicle size of foodwaste after pre-treatment was almost under 2mm, the mixture of foodwastes and sewage sludge showed an advantage to the anaerobic digestion. The amount of gas production increased from 0.8ton/day ($CH_4$ : 0.5ton/day) to 3.5ton/day ($CH_4$ : 2.3ton/day) after the anaerobic digestion of the foodwastes and sewage sludge mixture. The amount of sludge cake increased from 11.2ton/day to 21.2ton/day. Therefore, the proper operation of the foodwaste pre-treatment facility was contributed to the efficient anaerobic digestion of foodwaste and sewage sludge mixture treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.34-39
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• 2017

The recent gradual increase in the energy demand is mostly met by fossil fuel, but the research on and development of new alternative energy sources is drawing much attention due to the limited fossil fuel supply and the greenhouse gas problem. This paper assesses the feasibility of producing fuel energy from a dewatered sewage sludge by microwave-induced pyrolysis with sludge char and graphite receptor. Both receptors produced gas, char, and tar in order from product amount. The gas produced for the sludge char receptor contained mainly hydrogen and methane with a small amount of light hydrocarbons. The graphite receptor generated higher gravimetric tar and generated higher light tar. Through the results, the product gas from the microwave processes of wet sewage sludge might be possible as a fuel energy. But the product gas has to be removed the condensable PAH tars.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.1167-1171
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• 2003

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are an important group of organic contaminants present in sewage sludge, due to their persistence, toxic, bioaccumulative and long range transfer. These characters make themselves as Persistent Organic Pollutants(POPs) in Long Range Transboundary Air Pollutions convention(LRTAP) of Europe. A method of the gas chromatographicmass spectrometric (GCMS) determination of PAHs present in sewage sludge was developed and applied to analyzed samples from five sewerage treatment plants (SWTPs), having different treatment types. PAHs were extracted from freeze-dried samples by toluene 16 hours in a soxhlet extraction system. The sludge extracts were cleaned-up by an activated silica gel column chromatography. The sum of the 16 US Environmental Protection Agency PAHs sewage sludge samples varied from 2.44 to 4.82 $\mu\textrm{g}$/g. Concentration of emission carcinogen PAHs(PAHcarc), such as Benzo(a)anthracene, Benzo(b)f1uoranthene, Benzo(k)f1uoranthene, Benzo(a)pyrene, Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene and Indeno( 1,2,3-cd)pyrene ranged from 0.62 to 1.03 $\mu\textrm{g}$/g. The total amount of PAHs emission from sewage sludge in Korea was calculated as a top-down approach. PAHs and $\Sigma$PAHcarc from sewage treatment plants had emitted to environment by several pathway. The highest amount of emission to the environment was remarked in the ocean dumping(PAHs and $\Sigma$PAHcarc emissions were 1155.95 kg/year and 5040.32 kg/year, respectively).

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.317-324
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• 2007

The sewage treatment sludge disposal has become a serious environmental problem because of restricted direct land-filling and oceandumping in spite of their large amounts discharged. So the recycling of sewage treatment sludge is very useful alternative for waste management. Here, we studied the feasibility of zeolite synthesis in open system from the sewage treatment sludge incinerator fly ash by means of hydrothermal synthesis. We considered the concentration of NaOH, reaction time, reaction temperature and reaction step as synthesis variables. The phase of zeolite products was identified by X-ray diffractometer(XRD) and ammonium ion exchange test was performed for the raw fly ash and two zeolite products(Z-3 and Z-5). In leaching test of the raw fly ash, hazard metal is detected very low level compared with regulatory leaching test standard. But in total recoverable test, the total contents of the fly ash were very high in terms of the standard for waste-derived fertilizer. Through hydrothermal reaction, small amount of zeolite P was synthesied in 1 N of NaOH solution and relatively large amount of hydroxysodalite was synthesied in 3 N and 5 N of NaOH solution with similar peak intensity. Addition of an aging step in the synthesis didn't increase the amount of zeolite phase. Maximum $NE_4^+-N$ exchange capacity is 1.49 mg $NH_4^+-N/g$ in Z-3 and 1.38 mg $NH_4^+-N/g$ in Z-5. Most of the ammonium ion is exchanged in 30 minutes and disorption did not occur until 5 hours.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.65-74
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• 1998

Life cycle assessment (LCA) on two different sludge treatment systems, on-site treatment and pipe-collected intensive treatment was performed to estimate the environmental impact in the aspect of global warming effect. As a main parameter of the estimation, $CO_2$ was chosen and quantified through the whole life cycle of the treatment systems including construction, operation and dismantlement. In this study, the changes of $CO_2$ production unit (CPU) by up-scaling n currently used sludge treatment processes were also calculated. As the result, a larger amount of $CO_2$ was exhausted from the construction step of intensive treatment system than that of on-site treatment system, because an additional pipe-collection system was needed in intensive treatment system. However, the total amount of $CO_2$ exhausted from whole life cycle including not only construction and dismantlement but also 15 year-operation and maintenance was reduced by appling intensive treatment.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.70-73
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• 2003

Nitrate contamination in the aquatic systems is the primary indicator of poor agricultural management. The influence of sewage sludge application rates (0, 10, 25, 50 and 100 dry Mg/ha) on distribution of nitrate originating from the sewage sludge in soil profiles was investigated. Soil profile monitoring of nitrate was carried out with a Lakeland clay soil in 1997. Irrespectively of the sewage sludge application rates up to 50 dry Mg/ha, the concentration of $NO_3$-N at the 120 cm depth was below 10 mg/kg and the difference due to the amount of sewage sludge application was negligible at this depth. There was virtually no $NO_3$-N below 120 cm depth and this was confirmed by a deep sampling up to 300 cm depth. Most of the nitrate remained in the surface 60 cm of the soil. Below 120 cm depth nitrate concentration was very low because of the denitrification even at high sewage sludge rate of 100 dry Mg/ha. The $NO_3$-N concentrations in the soil fluctuated over the growing season due to plant uptake and denitrification. The risk of groundwater contamination by nitrate from sewage sludge application up to high rate of 100 dry Mg/ha was very low in a wheat grown clay soil with high water table ( < 3 m).

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.40-46
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• 2010

In this study, microwave irradiation, which is reflected by metals, was used to reduce the amount of sewage sludge, and the results were used to verify solubilization efficiency and determine optimum operation conditions. Biogas production and methane content of the gas under optimized conditions were measured with the biochemical methane potential (BMP) test. The sludge was taken from a thickened sludge tank at J sewage treatment plant (JSTP) in Seoul, Korea. For the experiments, 50 mL of sludge was filled in vessels and the vessels were irradiated with the power of 500, 600, 700, and 800W for 2~5 min. In addition, Fe powder was added by 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1 g to compare the efficiency with and without Fe powder. The results confirmed that solubilization efficiency was higher in the presence of Fe powder. The optimum conditions of 0.01 g addition of Fe powder with 800W irradiation for 5 min, yielded nearly 22.95% higher solubilization efficiency than without Fe powder. The BMP tests were carried out using sludge obtained from the experiments carried out under the optimum conditions. As a result, sludge subjected by 800W with 0.01 g of Fe powder for 5 min displayed the highest level of gas production and methane content. Through this study, it could be confirmed that solubilization efficiency increased by addition of Fe powder.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.134-139
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• 1999

The distributions of Cd, Cu, and Zn concentration in soil treated with one (1988) or two (1988 and 1993) applications of sewage sludge at rates of 0, 25, 50, and $100Mg\;ha^{-1}$ (dry weight basis) were determined to assess the accumulation and mobility of the heavy metals. The heavy metals accumulated almost entirely in 0 to 15 cm soil depths. Small amounts of the metals moved out of the tillage zone (0-15 cm depth) into the subsoil, but even at the high rate of sewage sludge, little movement of heavy metals occurred below 100 cm depth. The water-extractable Cd, Cu, and Zn concentrations were very low regardless of the rate of sewage sludge application. Availability of metals as determined by DTPA extraction showed the percentage of DTPA-extractable/total concentration increased with sewage sludge application. In the 0-15 cm depth of sewage sludge treated soil, the percentage of DTPA-extractable/total concentration was higher than 46% for Cd, but the value was less than 27% and 17% for Cu and Zn, respectively. The Cd, Cu, and Zn added to this calcareous clay soil by sewage sludge application were not very mobile, and the amount of plant available form was very small.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2005

Electro-thermal production of white phosphorus(WP, P4) generates substantial amount of highly toxic phossy water and sludges. Because of their high phosphorus contents and lack of reliable processing technology, large tonnages of these hazardous wastes have accumulated from current and past operations in the United States. In this study, two different methods for treatment of phosphorus sludge were investigated. These were bulk removal of WP by physical separation(froth flotation) and transformation of WP to oxyphosphorus compounds by air oxidation in the sludge medium. Kerosene, among other collectors, resulted in selective flotation of WP from the associated mineral gangue. Solvent action of kerosene occurring on the WP surface(by rendering WP particles hydrophobic) might produce the high selectivity of WP. The WP recovery in the froth was 79.3% from a sludge assaying 34.2% of WP. In the oxidation study, air gas was dispersed in the sludge medium by the rapid rotation of the impeller blades. The high level of sludge agitation intensity caused a fast completion of the oxidation reactions and it resulted in the high percentage conversion of WP to PO4-3 with PO3-3 making up almost all portion of oxyphosphorus compounds. The WP analysis on the treated sludge showed that supernatant solution and solid residue contained an average of 4.2 μg/L and 143 ppm respectively from the sludge containing about 26 g of WP. Further investigation will be required on operational factors to better understand the processes and achieve an optimum condition.