• Advances in environmental research
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.251-262
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• 2016

The biodegradability and decomposition efficiencies increase with the pre-treatment of sludge in a digestion process. In this study, the feasibility of ultrasound coupled with potassium permanganate oxidation as a disintegration method and digestibility of aerobic reactor fed with disintegrated sludge with ultrasound coupled potassium permanganate were investigated. The first stage of the study focused on determining the optimum condition for ultrasonic pre-treatment for achieving better destruction efficiency of sludge. The second part of the study, the aerobic digestibility of sludge disintegrated with ultrasound and potassium permanganate oxidation alone and combined were examined comparatively. The results showed that when 20 min of ultrasonic pre-treatment applied, the specific energy output was 49384 kJ/kgTS with disintegration degree of 58.84%. During the operation of aerobic digester, VS/TS ratios of digesters fed with disintegrated sludge decreased indicating that disintegration methods could obviously enhance aerobic digestion performance. The highest reduction in volatile solids was 75% in the digester fed with ultrasound+potassium permanganate disintegrated sludge at the end of the operation compared to digester fed with raw sludge. Total Nitrogen (TN) and Total Phosphorus (TP) levels in sludge supernatant increased with this combined method significantly. Besides, it promoted the production of ${\bullet}OH$, thus enhancing the release of Carbon (C), Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) from the sludge. Disintegration with all methods used in this study could not improve Capillary Suction Time (CST) reduction in disintegrated digesters during the operation. The results demonstrated that the combined ultrasound treatment and potassium permanganate oxidation method improves the biodegradability compared to control reactor or their single application.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.82-90
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• 2023

Biological process is used worldwide to treat domestic and industrial wastewater. The process generally uses a mixed microbial culture of sludge. The growth of microorganisms in the sludge produces excess sludge from the wastewater treatment process. Some of the excess sludge is recycled as inoculum for wastewater treatment, but the rest is removed as waste from the process. As wastewater production is increasing worldwide every year, the number of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is also in- creasing, resulting in the generation of large amount of waste sludge. The increasing amount of waste sludge from WWTPs has led to concerns about its management. Sludge disposal has been reported to account for 50~60% of the total operating costs of a WWTP. Sludge disintegration is a new technology that can minimize volume of waste sludge and recover useful components (e.g., P, N, and soluble organic compounds) from it. Various methods of sludge disintegration have been developed based on physical, chemical, and biological treatments or combinations of these. In this review, we focus on sludge disintegration by acid hydrolysis, which is less studied among sludge disintegration methods. Such information can be useful in the development and implementation of a new technology for better sludge treatment.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.107-114
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• 2021

This study applied with pre-treatment combined with thermal hydrolysis and seperation for disintegration of sludge. As results of particle size distribution D10, D50 and D90 of thermal hydrolyzed and centrifuged sludge was 8.6, 59.2 and 425.1 ㎛, which are lower than those of thermal hydrolyzed. The molecular weight distribution results showed that the thermal hydrolyzed sludge showed the highest proportion in the 10-100kDa range. But, Sludge, treated with combined pre-treatment, showed the highest proportion <1kDa range. Results of DOC and UVA₂₅₄ found that the organic matters of hydrolyzed sludge composed high molecular weight component above 10kDa. While, the organic matters of sludge, treated by combined pre-treatment, composed relarively low molecular weight below 1kDa. The specific methane yield of hydrolyzed and centrifuged sludge was higher 1.7 times than that of only hydrolyzed sludge.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06d
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• pp.133-138
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• 2001

In this paper, we have investigated the drying characteristics of waste sludge in a rotary dryer equipped with disintegration device. The sludge samples($moisture\;contents\;:\;70{\sim}85%\;W.B.$) used in the experiment were mainly a soybean and an alcohol fermentation sludges in food industry, or sewage sludge. It was studied by measuring the change of moisture contents that the shaft speed($operating\;range\;:\;100{\sim}250rpm$) affected on the drying rate and the particle size distribution of the dried solid. The dried granular products of the diameter of 1 to 5mm are obtained from sludge materials. In the results, as the increased of shaft speed, the particle size and the moisture contents of dried solid was decreased, and the retention time was increased.

• 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 the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.121-129
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• 2004

Anaerobic digestion is the most common process for sewage sludge stabilization and has benefits of VS reduction and biogas production. Many pretreatment methods have been studied to improve hydrolysis rate because the rate of sewage sludge degradation is slow in anaerobic digestion. This study mainly focused upon the effects on disintegration of sewage sludge by ultrasonic pretreatment according to the variation of acoustic density and duration of sonication time. In this study, acoustic density has been changed as follows : 33W/L, 70W/L, 88W/L, 139W/L in case of 40 kHz with the test time changes of 10min, 20min, 25min, 30min and 40min. In the comparison of $SCOD_{Cr}/TCOD_{Cr}$ variation for excess sludge and mixed sludge disintegration, the rates of $SCOD_{Cr}/TCOD_{Cr}$ have been increased in the condition of denser acoustic density and longer sonication time with acoustic frequency of 40kHz. The pH of the excess sewage sludge and mixed sewage sludge has been decreased in the condition of denser acoustic density and longer sonication time with acoustic frequency of 40kHz.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.83-90
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• 2008

The ultrasonic pre-treatment of sewage sludge (SS) was investigated to increase soluble organic material and to improve anaerobic biodegradability. Ultrasonic disintegration of SS increased the amount of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), protein and carbohydrate concentrations whereas particle size decreased due to the break-up of cell walls. In terms of anaerobic biodegradability, ultrasonic pre-treatment enhanced the anaerobic biodegradation of SS, leading to the methane gas production improvement. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) of SS was 211.3 ml $CH_4/gVS$ whereas BMP after ultrasonic pre-treatment was 294.3 ml $CH_4/gVS$. The improvement in BMP for SS treated with ultrasonic disintegration was as high as 40 %. This result indicated that disintegration of SS was efficient for enhancing anaerobic biodegradability.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.83-89
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• 2014

The effects of initial solid concentration and microwave irradiation (MWI) time on the hydrolysis of waste activated sludge (WAS) were investigated. MWI time strongly influenced WAS hydrolysis for all initial solid concentrations of 8.20, 31.51, and 52.88 g VSS/L. For all WAS, the volatile suspended solids (VSS) solubilization degree ranged from 35.6% to 38.4% during a total MWI time of 10 min. Soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) concentration increased at a rate proportional to the decrease of VSS during the MWI. However, the clearly different VSS solubilization patterns that were observed during the MWI were explained by the 2-step hydrolysis of WAS, consisting of the initial disintegration of the easily degradable part of the sludge, followed by the subsequent disintegration of the hardly degradable part of the sludge. WAS hydrolysis rates for 3 to 6 min of MWI were significantly lower than those for less than 3 min, or more than 6 min. From these results, 3 min MWI time and WAS of 31.51 g VSS/L (centrifugal thickener WAS) showed the most efficient hydrolysis of WAS at 36.0%. The profiles of total nitrogen (T-N) concentrations corresponded well to the SCOD increases in terms of the empirical formula of bacterial cell mass ($C_5H_7O_2N$). The negligible T-N increase and pH decrease during WAS hydrolysis by MWI will allow the application of this process to subsequent biological processes, such as anaerobic digestion.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.257-262
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• 2017

Several disposal processes for waste sludge from wastewater treatment plants such as landfill, ocean dump, incineration, reuse as fuels or fertilizers are practiced. However, ocean dumping is prohibited by international treat. New constructions of landfill sites or incineration facilities are limited by NIMBY and reuse processes are still suffering from low energy yield. Therefore, development of alternative processes for sludge disposal are currently needed. In this study, alternative technique for sludge solubilization using HVI (high voltage impulse) was suggested and verified experimentally. Sludge solubilization was carried out for 90 minutes using HVI discharge with peak voltage of 16 kV and pulse duration for 40 microsecond. About 3~9 % of MLSS and MLVSS concentration were reduced, but the soluble COD, TN, TP of the sludge increased to 372 %, 56 % and 102 % respectively. It indicates that the flocs and/or cells of the sludge were damaged by HVI. These resulted in flocs-disintegration and cells-lysis, which means the internal matters were bursted out of the flocs as well as the cells. Thus, electrical conductivity in bulk solution was increased. All of the results verified that the HVI could be used as an alternative technique for sludge solubilization processes.