• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.181-186
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• 1998

The effects of sewage treatment on characteristics of sludge as a composting material were investigated for a year during the initial operation at the full-scale Chunan sewage treatment plant. Due to the shortage of design capacity of belt press, a sludge dewatering unit, non-volatile solids were recirculating and concentrating in the treatment plant, resulting in an increase of MLSS and a decrease in F/M ratio at the activated sludge system. Special attention is required for long term operations since the increase of non-volatile solids in the plant would deteriorates the treatment efficiency. The sewage sludge of the Chunan sewage treatment plant showed 79.5% of water content, 11.6% of organic content, and C/N ratio of 6.1, and contained As 1.8 mg/kg, Cd 27 mg/kg, Hg <0.1 mg/kg, Pb 54 mg/kg, T-Cr 370 mg/kg, and Cu 1,100mg/kg of heavy metals. In order to be used as raw material for optimum composting, the sewage sludge requires bulking agents for moistrure/porosity control and a carbon source for adjusting C/N ratio. However, the sewage sludge is not adequate as a soil conditioner after composing due to a high content of heavy metals. If the sewage sludge has to he used as a soil conditioner after composting, it as required to identify and remove tire industrial wastewater portions in tire influent of the plant since heavy metals in the influent were mostly concentrated in dewatered sludge.