Comparative Investigation of Parameters for Determining the Dewaterability of Activated Sludge

Ge Peng, Fenxia Ye*, Ying Li

ABISTRAC17: This paper compared four parameters evaluating the dewaterability of sludge-capillary suction time (CST), specific resistance

to filtration (SRI), bound water content, and dry solids content in the centrifuged sludge cake of the different sludge flocs from seven full-scale
wastewater treatment plants. The dry solids content cotrelated with the

correlated significantly with SRF (R2=0.9450, p=0.000) and correlated with the bound water (R2 =0.51 10, p=0.0417). However, SRF correlated very weakly with the bound water (R2 =0.3929, p=0.0448). It is not

normalized CST (R2 =0.7112, p=0.00 3 ), SRF (R2=0.6043, p=0.01 I), and the bound water content (R2=0.8106, p=0.001). The normalized CST was

necessary to use both CST and SRF at the same time to estimate the sludge
dewaterability. The normalized CST is feasible because of its affordability. simple equipment, and measurement procedure. However, another parameter indicating the dewatering extent, such as dry solids content in sludge cake, should be applied together to evaluate the dewatering efficiency of tha activated sludge. Water Environ. Res., 83, 667 (2011). KEYWORDS: activated sludge, dewaterability, bound water, capillary
suction time, specific resistance to filtration, dry solids.

doi:l 0.2175/10614301OX 12851009156646

Introduction The biological treatment of wastewater produces significant quantities of excess activated sludge, the water content of which is generally greater than 95%. Therefore, it is necessary to dewater the sludge to obtain a product that is dry enough to allow a reduction in volume, facilitate transportation, and decrease the energy used in the case of drying or incineration. In many wastewater treatment facilities, the bottleneck of th6 sludge handling system is the dewatering operation. Hlowever, it is well-known that the activated sludge generally is hard to dewater and often exhibits nontraditional filtration behavior (Stickland et al., 2005). The water classification is more complex and includes four categories, including free water (Lee and Hsu, 1995; Vesilind, 1994). The free water can be eliminated by simple thickening or weak mechanical methods. The bound water (BW) is fixed to the sludge and cannot be removed by mechanical means. This bound water content is one of the main limiting factors in the water removal efficiency (Lee, 1995). Therefore, the bound water Depaetruent of Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University of Technology, Ningbo, China. "'Department of'Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University of Technology, Nitgbo 315016, China; e-mail: fenxiaye@126.com; yefenxia@hotmail.
com. July 2011

content has been chosen as an index for evaluating the dewaterability of the activated sludge (Jin et al., 2004; Vaxelaire and C6zac, 2004). The most common laboratory procedures for quantifying sludge dewaterability are capillary suction time (CST) and specific resistance to filtration (SRF). However, in full-scale plants, dewatering of the activated sludge typically is carried out using belt filter presses or centrifuges. so that sludge dewaterability is expressed in terms of cake solids content or dry solids or water content in the dewatered sludge cake. In fact, the dewatering efficiency of the activated sludge depends on not only the rate of dewatering, but also the extent of dewatering. The rate of dewatering typically is measured in the laboratory using a CST test or SRF, whereas the extent of dewatering typically is measured by the dewatered cake solids as the percent dry solids. Therefore, it is possible that the activated sludge is easily filterable, but there is a high amount of residual water in the dewatered sludge (Novak, 2006). Most of the investigations focused on the filtration rate measurements, including the CST test and the determination of SRF. However, CST and SRF test are not always able to predict full-scale performance (Marinetti et al., 2009). In fact, in our previous study, we found that the SRF value of the activated sludge in a fruit processing plant is low, but CST is high (data not shown). This impelled us to investigate the relationships between the dewatering parameters. Although bound water content, CST, SRF, and dry solids content have been used for determining the dewaterability of the activated sludge, up to now, little attention has been given to achieve an optimum parameter to evaluate the sludge dewaterability and to estimate the correlation between bound water, CST, SRF, and dry solids. The aim of this study was to determine bound water, CST, SRF, and dry solids values of the activated sludge from different industries and urban activated sludge samples and examine their correlations. During the investigation of nearly 1 year, the activated sludge underwent various operation changes under steady and unsteady state. The goal was to obtain an optimum parameter for determining the sludge dewaterability, which may be helpful to estimate the maximum performance of the dewatering process and improve the dewatering efficiency of the activated sludge. Methodology Activated Sludge Samples.

Activated sludge samples were

taken from seven different full-scale activated sludge wastewater 667

Peng et al. Table 1-Process descriptions of the different WWTPs. Treatment plant Municipal North Municipal North Municipal South Dye plant (D) Fruit processing District I (A) District 11 (B) District (C) plant (E) Source of wastewater Domestic 70%, leachate30% Mainly domestic Mainly domestic Printing and dyeing wastewater Fruit-tinned processing wastewater Chemicals wastewater Petroleum refinery wastewater Paper pulp wastewater Biological processa CAS A2/O A/O A/0 CAS A/0 Contacting oxidation-SBR A/OC/ Organic loading rate (kg COD/kg SS.d) 0.51 0.37 0.33 0.48 0.72 + 0.05 - 0.05 +-0.05 _ 0.05 + 0.05 C:N of influentb 4 to 5 7 to 9 4 to 5 9 to 11 13 to 15 14 to 16 13 to 14 75 to 85

Chemicals plant (F) Petrochemical plant (G) Pulp-paper plant (H)

0.78 + 0.05 0.70 + 0.05 0.81 t 0.05

a CAS = conventional activated sludge, A2 /0 = anaerobic-anoxic-oxic, A/O = anaerobic-oxic, A/D/O = anaerobic-oxic-oxic, and SBR sequencing batch bioreactor. b C = COD and N = total nitrogen. treatment plants (WWTPs) in Ningbo, China. These included two sewage treatment plants and five industrial activated sludge treatment processes for dyeing, canned fruit processing, pulp and paper, chemicals, and petrochemical industries. Two types of activated sludge were collected from the same sewage treatment plant (North District municipal sewage treatment plant, Ningbo, China), but using different treatment processes. The biological treatment process descriptions of the WWTPs are given in Table 1. The sludge was sampled once per month from the aeration tank of each WWTP and stored in filled plastic containers placed in an ice cooler during the transportation from the WWTP site to the laboratory. All of the activated sludges settled for only I hour to obtain the concentrated sludge and were not conditioned with any conditioner. Sample tests started immediately and were completed within 20 hours, while being kept refrigerated at 4 0C. Sludge Dewaterability Test. The CST was measured by a CST instrument (Model 304M, Triton Electronics Ltd., Essex, England) as detailed in Standard Methods (APHA et al., 1995) with a CST paper purchased from Triton Electronics Ltd. The CST for distilled water was stable at t I seconds. The CST values were normalized by dividing them by the initial total suspended solids (TSS) concentration and then expressed in units of seconds per liter per gram TSS. The test was made in triplicate with a standard deviation of 5%. The method of Wisniewski and Grasmick (1998) was modified to measure SRF. The SRF test was conducted in a 250-mL stirred cell using a filter with 0.45-jam filter paper. The stirred cell was filled with 100 mL of the sludge suspension, and a constant pressure was applied by an air pump. The production of filtrate under pressure was recorded continuously. The SRF (mlkg) of the sludge was calculated by the following: SRF = 2000 A2 Apb/tC Where Ap (35 kPa) A (0.00502 m2) l C b (s/m6) = pressure applied; =filter area; = viscosity of the permeate (Pa-s); = sludge concentration in TSS (kg/in); and = time-to-filtration ratio, which is the slope of the curve that is obtained by plotting the ratio of the time of filtration to the volume of filtrate (tIV) versus the filtrate volume (V). (1) The bound water value was estimated by the dilatometric method according to Smith and Vesiland (1995). The dry solids content was measured by a centrifuge instrument. Approximately 50-mL sludge samples were centrifuged at 2215Xg for 10 minutes. The solids content was analyzed following Standard Methods (APHA et al., 1995). Statistical Analysis. Statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS software version 11.0 for Windows (SPSS, Chicago, Illinois). The Pearson's correlation coefficient (R2 ) was used to estimate the linear correlation between two parameters. The Pearson's R2 coefficient is always between -l and +1, where -I means a perfect negative correlation, +1 a perfect positive correlation, and 0 the absence of a relationship. Correlations were considered statistically significant at confidence interval p< 0 .05 . Results and Discussion For all of the activated sludge samples studied, the normalized CST, SRF, bound water content, and dry solids content were in the range 2.8 to 17.9 s.L/g TSS, 3.7 to 14.0 X 108 n/kg, 7.2 to 26.7 g/ g TSS, and 2. lto 7.0%, respectively. The type and pore size of the filter paper affect the assessment of filterability of the activated sludge, such as CST and SRF, which therefore prevents the direct comparison of the results obtained in various studies. This indicated a necessity of standardizing filter paper in bench-scale sludge filterability tests (Yigit et al., 2010). Because no pressure is applied during the measurement of CST, it may not simulate the actual treatment process in many applications. For sample, Wu et al. (1997) found that CST measurement led to excess use of conditioners for sludge. The SRF measurements, on the other hand, are carried out by a Buchner funnel filtration test apparatus at constant vacuum pressure. In practical WWTPs, dry solids content typically was used as the dewaterability indicator of the activated sludge. Therefore, the correlations between dry solids content and the normalized CST/ SRF/BW content were investigated in this study. A negative correlation between dry solids content and the normalized CST was obtained (R2 =0.7112, p=0.0 0 3 ) (Figure 1.). Similarly, negative correlations were observed between dry solids content and SRF (R2=0.6043, p=0.01l) (Figure 2) and between dry solids content and the bound water content (R2 =0.8106, p=0.001) (Figure 3). For the same dry solids content, the correlation with the bound water content was strongest, then the normalized CST,
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Figure 3-Pearson correlation between bound water content and dry solids content from different sludges of seven WWTPs. (R2 =0.5110, p=0.041 7 ). Both bound water and CST have been used widely for determining dewaterability of the activated sludge; however, to date, little attention has been given to determine the correlation between bound water and CST. Smollen (1990) concluded that no correlation was found between the sludge bound water content and CST. However, the author used a different technique (drying technique) to determine the bound water, which can significantly change the results because different portions of the four water categories were measured, as explained by Vaxelaire and Cdzac (2004). Jin et al. (2004) found a correlation between the sludge bound water content and CST (rp=0.7489, p=0.0306); however, in their study, the bound water content was measured using a simplified centrifugation method, rather than the dilatometric measurement. There are many water distribution measurements with varying operation conditions between investigations (Vaxelaire and C6zac, 2004). Not surprisingly, the results obtained by these various techniques differed greatly. Thus, selecting the best adapted method is not easy, as it is quite difficult to get a clear picture of the distribution of water within the activated sludge. Figure 6 shows that SRF correlated very weakly with the bound water content (R2 =0.3929, p=0.04;4 8). These weak correlations suggested that the measurements of both CST or SRF and bound 60

Figure 1-Pearson correlation between normalized CST and dry solids content from different sludges of seven WWTPs.
and finally the SRF value. The CST had a better correlation with dry solids than SRF, which was consistent with Pan et al. (2003). Figure 4 shows that the SRF and normalized CST were correlated strongly (R2 =0.9450, p=0.000), which may be because these two parameters are the indicators of the filterability. The correlation between CST and SRF has been a scientific discussion for several years (Kavanagh, 1980). The result was consistent with the findings of Baskerville and Gale (1968). Yu et at. (2010) also found that the normalized CST was significantly correlated with SRF (R2 =0.95, p<O.Ot). Considering that both CST and SRF were applied to determine dewaterability of the same sludge in many investigations (Feng et al., 2009; Ghebremichael and Hultman, 2004; Yu et al., 2009, 2010; Zhang and Chen, 2009), the above results indicated that it is not necessary to use CST and SRF simultaneously to assess the dewaterability of the activated sludge because they are similar indicators of dewatering rate of the sludge. The CST test is better than SRF because of the simple equipment and procedure of measurement. However, the normalized CST is feasible because the solids concentration should be taken into account during CST measurement. Figure 5 illustrates how the normalized CST and bound water content were related to each other. A low value of the normalized CST corresponded linearly to a low content of bound water 16 14 12
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July 2011

CST(s lg TSS) Figure 4-Pearson correlation between the SRF and normalized CST from different sludges of seven WWTPs.
669

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CST(s L/gTSS) SRF(m/kg, x 108) Figure 5-Pearson correlation between bound water content and CST from different sludges of seven WWTPs. water do not correspond to a similar indication, in terms of dewaterability of the activated sludge. This result, with the strong correlations between SRF and the normalized CST and between the bound water and dry solids content, revealed that the measurements of both CST and SRF correspond similarly, in terms of dewatering rate of the activated sludge, but the bound water and dry solids content indicate the dewatering extent of the activated sludge. On the other hand, even if the water passes through the filter cake quickly, the water content inside small pores and capillaries and water bound inside the floc matrix may remain high. Therefore, the CST and SRF may be related strongly to the "free" water in the activated sludge, whereas the bound water content may be related to the firmly fixed water in the sludge flocs, then related to the dry solids content in the sludge cake. The results also suggested that the CST or SRF test alone is inadequate to determine the grade of separation of sludge solids from the water. Historically, a wide range of empirical measurements have been used for determining dewaterability of the sludge, with one of the most common being CST (Feng et al., 2009; Jarvis et al., 2004; Subramanian et al., 2008; Zhang and Chen, 2009). Although the CST test does not quantify a particular, fundamentally based physical parameter of the sludge, there is a strong linear correlation between the normalized CST and SRF; the normalized CST method provides a simple, rapid, and inexpensive method to measure the dewaterability potential of the sludge flocs (Houghton and Stephenson, 2002; Yu et al., 2008), has been accepted and used widely, and has been assigned a specific protocol in the United States (APHA et al., 1995). It is obvious that improvements in both the rate of dewatering and the extent of dewatering are needed. As a result, the normalized CST measurement and another parameter indicating the dewatering extent, such as dry solids content in the dewatered cake, should be applied together to evaluate the dewaterability of the activated sludge. Up to the present, the most common and successful applicability of the laboratory studies is the optimum conditioning dose that typically is determined using the CST test. By taking into consideration the cost and specific energy requirement, the CST test is the most inexpensive compared with the other dewatering parameters. Sludge dewaterability is a complex phenomenon depending on many factors; however, it is possible to determine which sludge can be dewatered easily and provide some parameters to evaluate
670

Figure 6-Pearson correlation between bound water content and SRF from different sludges of seven WWTPs. the sludge. Even so, the relationship between these parameters should be well-understood. The finding also should be tested and evaluated on a specific plant basis by incorporating cost-benefit analysis. Conclusions This paper presented a comparative and correlative study of the parameters for evaluating dewaterability of the activated sludge. The following conclusions may be drawn from this study: (1) The dry solids content correlated with the normalized CST, SRF, and the bound water content. The normalized CST was significantly corrected with SRF and bound water content. However, SRF correlated very weakly with the bound water content. (2) It is not necessary to use the CST and SRF tests simultaneously to estimate the dewaterability of sludge because they are similar indicators of the dewatering rate. (3) The normalized CST is feasible because of the simple equipment and measurement procedure. Another parameter indicating the dewatering extent, such as the bound water or dry solids content in sludge cake, should be applied with the normalized CST measurement to evaluate perfectly the dewaterability of the activated sludge. Credits The authors thank the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Hangzhou, China) (Y5090038) and Ningbo Bureau of Science and Technology (Ningbo, China) (2010A610090) for their financial support. Submitted for publication September 25, 2010; revised manuscript submitted November 14, 2010; acceptedfor publication December 6, 2010. References American Public Health Association; American Water Works Association;
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Author: Peng, Ge; Ye, Fenxia; Li, Ying Title: Comparative Investigation of Parameters for Determining the Dewaterability of Activated Sludge Source: Water Environ Res 83 no7 Jl 2011 p. 667-71 ISSN: 1061-4303 DOI:l 0.2175/10614301OX 12851009156646 Publisher: Water Environment Federation 601 Wythe Street, Alexandria, Va 22314-1994

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